


Mirror, Mirror

by starseed



Series: Avenues [2]
Category: Hanson (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Anger, Angst, Blackouts, Blow Jobs, Cheating, Confessions, Drunk Blow Jobs, Drunk Sex, Escapism, First Love, Forbidden Love, Infidelity, Language, Making Up, Male Slash, Multi, Musicians, Oral Sex, POV First Person, Past Relationship(s), Pregnancy, Rumors, Secret Relationship, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest, Slash, Songwriting, Substance Abuse, Tattoos, Threesome - M/M/M, Unexpected Visitors, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2018-10-30 17:16:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 60,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10881360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starseed/pseuds/starseed
Summary: “I had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimes it looked like me. At other times, I could see someone similar but different in the reflection. A few times, I caught the switch in mid-stare, my expression re-forming like melting rubber, the creases and features of my face softening or hardening until the mutation was complete. Jekyll to Hyde, or Hyde to Jekyll. I felt my inner core change at the same time.” - Jarod Kintz.





	1. Like a Sunburn

**Author's Note:**

> *This story is from Taylor's POV.

Bliss.

That was the only possible word to describe the feeling that came to life inside of me as I gazed out across the blanket of sand stretching toward the sparkling blue water. Pure and utter bliss. The waves were as clear and pristine as polished glass, and when they broke I could have sworn I saw our reflection staring back at me. I readjusted my sunglasses and leaned back against the beach chair barely able to support my weight that Zac had picked up at some surf shop by the pier, letting the delicious rays of sun wash over me. The salty ocean air danced across my skin, carried along by the soft, refreshing breeze. I felt more relaxed than I had in days, maybe even months.

We somehow ended up with a free week amidst a flurry of international trips to promote our latest album. We’d originally planned on going directly home to Tulsa to be with our families, but our manager landed us a performance slot at a fairly high-profile charity event in Hollywood, and so we made a slight change of plans on our way out of Canada and headed to L.A. instead. Most people were dazzled by Los Angeles upon first glance, but in the end declared it much too crowded and overwhelming, but it remained one of my absolute favorite cities. In fact, I considered it my home away from home, but thanks to our chaotic schedule that threw us all over the map, I was rarely able to spend time there anymore. 

Isaac had crashed at the hotel almost immediately after getting off of the plane, mumbling something about needing to find a bed as soon as possible or he was going to _die_ , and while a nap definitely sounded tempting, I was glad that Zac and I had decided to power through our fatigue and soak up the sun for awhile. Well, I was glad that _I_ had decided to power through my fatigue. It seemed that Zac had given into his, the unnatural angle of his head against his chest as he breathed heavily through full and parted lips leading me to believe that he was already fast asleep. 

Careful not to disturb him, I bent down and retrieved the small bottle of sunscreen from beneath his chair. The only real complaint I had about L.A. involved the nasty sunburns I always acquired when I was there. Zac thrived beneath the eye of the sun, his skin bronzing beautifully, whereas mine blistered and peeled without fail. Since I was determined not to look like a human lobster parading around with a microphone at our upcoming show, I poured a generous amount of the cool liquid into my palm and applied it to my hopelessly pale body. 

“You missed a spot,” Zac spoke up from beside me, the sound of his voice startling me so badly that I nearly fell out of my chair. His hair and large sunglasses hid most of his face from view, but I could still see that his eyes were open, watching me. 

“Did I?”

He nodded and trailed his hand across my chest, rubbing the excess lotion into my skin in soothing circles. When his fingers grazed my nipple, I shivered and suppressed a moan. He smirked and gave it a little pinch before venturing down my stomach, catching his pinky finger in the drawstring of my shorts.

“Careful,” I warned him breathlessly, swatting his hand away. “We’re still in public, you know.”

“You should be proud of me for restraining myself,” he said, his lips inching toward my ear. “If it were up to me, I’d bend you over this beach chair and fuck you while everyone around us watched.”

_Oh, fuck._

My eyes fluttered closed as I lost myself in the image that his words implied. It had been so long since we’d been together, since I’d felt him inside of me. When his hand brushed across my erection, I let out a tortured breath and cracked my eyelids, surveying his face through the shaded lens. 

“Do you even know what you do to me?” I asked.

He smiled, moving his hand up so that it barely touched the heated skin of my cheek. Then he leaned in even closer, his lips leaving burn marks on my neck that were much more intense than what even the glaring sun was capable of. No matter how many times he kissed me, I was always caught off guard, always reminded that the bond we shared was unlike any other.

“I have a pretty good idea,” he whispered.

When he pulled away and settled back into his chair, looking completely smug and at ease, I couldn’t help but return the mischievous grin. This was going to be one hell of an adventure. But with Zac, it always was.


	2. Wake-Up Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The morning will come in the press of every kiss, with your head upon my chest; where I will annoy you with every waking breath, until you decide to wake up.” – Coheed and Cambria._

Normally, when we were lucky enough to stay at a hotel for any length of time, we all booked separate rooms. It wasn’t like we didn’t have the money for it, and after spending weeks upon weeks on a cramped tour bus with little to no privacy, the luxury of personal space was too good to pass up. But on this particular trip, Zac and I decided to stay in the same room. We knew that we’d end up spending practically all of our time together anyway, and without our wives there, what was the point in pretending otherwise? I had no idea how Isaac would react, but thankfully he turned a (mostly) blind eye to our request, and our tour manager, who remained clueless to everything that wasn’t strictly business related, wouldn’t have even batted an eyelash if all _three_ of us had chosen to share a king-sized bed. 

And so it was with only a mild sense of guilt and paranoia that I woke up beside my little brother on our first full day in L.A. The rest of me felt incredibly content and peaceful, my arm draped across his warm chest as I watched the late morning sun filter through the blinds. He was so beautiful, physically breathtaking in a way he never gave himself credit for, and I took advantage of the long, silent moments with him that were hardly ever allowed when we were home.

Hotel rooms would probably forever remind me of the night Zac and I sealed the fate of our relationship four months ago. Maybe our first time together hadn’t taken place in the ideal setting, but my life had been stripped of its supposed sense of perfection long ago. Despite my tendency to always push my limits, I honestly didn’t care about being perfect anymore. I simply wanted to be _happy_ , and with Zac asleep next to me, his cheek pressed against my shoulder, I could think of nowhere else I’d rather be.

The alarm clock buzzed harshly by the bedside, letting me know that we only had an hour before we needed to meet Isaac in the hotel lobby. The charity event was the following day, and there were still at least a dozen loose ends that had to be tied. Zac rolled away from me and buried his face into the pillow, looking like a picture of innocence beneath his long, messy curtain of hair. He still hadn’t lost the ability to appear vulnerable and childlike, although the dirty words that often left his mouth these days were a deep contrast to how angelic he looked right now. But I’d grown fond of the paradox. I’d known Zac for his entire life and the majority of mine, but the feelings between us were still so new, sending me into the open arms of love and blinding lust that had never exactly embraced me and my loyal wife. Marriage was like trudging up a long, steep mountain; I quickly grew bored with the passing scenery, and the path I was on was exhausting and seemed to have no end. But being with Zac was like riding a roller coaster that I’d already been on a hundred times. Even though I was familiar with every twist and turn and staggering drop, my heart stopped and swelled each time I was reminded that what I’d secretly desired for so long had finally turned into a reality. 

“Wake up,” I said softly, shifting on my side and pressing my lips to the pulse on his neck.

“No,” he replied stubbornly, yanking the pillow over his head.

“We have to meet Ike for breakfast at 10.”

“Go without me,” he mumbled.

I tried to tug the pillow away, but he was stronger, his arm effectively securing it around him.

“C’mon,” I urged as I went for a different approach this time, snaking my arm around his waist and letting my hand drift lower and lower until it found his half-hard cock. 

He responded by grinding his hips into the mattress and letting out a muffled groan. I smiled in spite of my frustration—Zac was entirely too predictable sometimes. He only refused food when he was swayed by a more appealing offer (which meant either sleep or sex). Therefore, I was set on presenting him with something he couldn’t turn down.

His stifled moans sounded in the air like a desperate plea as my fingers curled around him. He rolled onto his back to allow me better access, and I saw that his eyes were just barely open now, clouded by a veil of sleep and lust.

“Want you,” he admitted hoarsely.

“You can have me… but only if you promise to wake up,” I whispered, a helpless whimper falling from his lips as I removed my hand from his now fully erect length.

“Don’t be a fucking tease,” he pleaded.

“Don’t be a lazy asshole,” I countered.

“Fine,” he relented, breathing out a loud, exasperated sigh. He shifted his eyes to meet mine and blinked in a wildly exaggerated fashion. “See? I’m wide awake. Are you happy now?”

“Not yet,” I murmured, leaning down across his navel to tentatively lick the head of his cock. God, I loved the way he tasted. Maybe I was biased, but there were few things I enjoyed doing more than going down on him. He gasped and arched his back off the mattress as I lifted my head and gazed up at him, wishing that I could see his eyes through the thick locks of hair that covered them.

“Fuck, please don’t stop,” he breathed, moving the wayward strands from his face as though he’d read my mind. He wasted no time in tugging at my hair and guiding me back down to his lap.

“I thought you wanted to fuck me?” I asked with a smirk, my lips only inches away from his erection. 

“I do, but… oh, God.” 

He fell back against the pillow and closed his eyes, silenced by several torturous strokes of my tongue (which I fully believed he deserved). When I finally wrapped my lips around him, I watched his eyes slowly open as he fought for enough composure to allow him to complete his sentence.

“I want to be inside of you so badly, but I won’t be able to last much longer if you keep that up.”

I lifted my head and traced my index finger along the outline of his lips before letting him suck it all the way into his mouth. He swirled his tongue deliberately around my finger as if it were my cock, his eyes still locked with mine. What he was doing to me was at once so sensual, so sexual, that I got lost in the pleasure of it and momentarily forgot the task at hand. But the fire in his eyes let me know that _he_ certainly hadn’t forgotten, so when he released my finger, I wasted no time in preparing myself. Unfortunately, I’d failed to turn off the ‘snooze’ button, so the alarm blared through the room again just as I was straddling him, bringing me back to reality and the fact that we really didn’t have enough time to do this. But before I could say a word, Zac leaned across me and smacked the digital clock with nearly enough force to break it, effectively shutting it up. And the next moment, his lips were on mine, soft and strong and sure. 

“Ride me,” he murmured against my lips.

When I lowered myself onto him, I started to swallow a moan but was suddenly reminded that we had an entire private hotel room to ourselves. The sense of freedom was foreign—I’d grown accustomed to holding back simply because we had to—but I would’ve been an absolute fool not to take advantage of it. So I rested my palm against his chest and let a mixture of gasps and uncontained obscenities fall from my mouth as he filled me with a pleasure that, until a few short months ago, I hadn’t thought possible. 

I swiveled my hips and sank down around him in the way I knew he loved, causing him to capture my lips in a rough and desperate kiss. As our tongues found each other, his hand gripped my erection and adopted a rhythm that he likely had as little control over as the frantic breaths that mingled with my own. It didn’t take long for him to start shaking and calling out my name in the way he knew _I_ loved, collapsing back against the sheets and smiling up at me.

“Now that’s my idea of a wake-up call,” he declared, closing his eyes with a satisfied sigh.

I shook my head and kissed him one more time before climbing off of him and making my way toward the shower. I knew that he wouldn’t be far behind.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

We were fifteen minutes late for our prearranged breakfast with Isaac, but he didn’t even comment on our tardiness. Not that I’d actually expected him to. He used to always remark on my perpetual lateness, but over the last several months, he’d gotten _very_ good at biting his tongue. Sometimes, though, I wished he would slip up and let me know exactly what he was thinking. I still wasn’t sure if our older brother truly knew what was going on between us or if it was just a strong suspicion. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to ask him, and so the elephant remained in the room with us, staying at a distance so as to not attract unwanted attention, but letting us know that it was there all the same.

“Sleep well?” I asked him as I grabbed the pot of coffee from the center of the table and poured myself a cup.

“Like a baby,” he replied with a smile, stirring his cereal. 

Isaac was lucky that his hotel room was two floors up from ours, because if he had been able to hear what we’d done that morning, there was no way in hell he would’ve looked so relaxed and peaceful at that moment. 

I nodded and sipped my coffee, rolling my eyes as Zac plopped down beside me with a plate piled high with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and pancakes. Whenever we stayed somewhere that offered such a continental feast, he always crowded his plate with more food than he could ever hope to finish and tried to force his leftovers onto me. The end result typically involved Zac pouting as he shoveled the last few bites of lukewarm eggs into his mouth. After twenty-six years, I thought he’d come to understand that I didn’t do breakfast, but apparently there were certain things about me he refused to accept.

To make this particular morning go a bit more smoothly than other breakfast meetings in the past, I caved in and ate the piece of bacon that Zac dangled shamelessly in front of me. He actually beamed at me as I chewed and swallowed, his eyes sparkling with a look of certain victory, and I couldn’t help smiling back at him. Sometimes I was blown away by how damn _cute_ he was. 

We discussed the charity event for about an hour, nailing down all of the logistics of our performance as well as the necessary setup. When the meeting drew to a close, I was amped up from the three cups of surprisingly strong coffee I’d consumed, whereas Zac looked exhausted from his eating marathon as he picked at a few defeated toast crumbs on his plate.

“Oh, and before I forget, apparently we’re going to a party tonight,” Isaac announced.

“We are?” Zac asked at the very same moment I inquired, “What sort of party?”

“I’ll forward you both the e-mail once I get back to my room. It sounds mostly like a block party to me, but we’re encouraged to go just to mingle, so that we have a ‘better sense of community’ at the event tomorrow,” Ike replied, using air quotes.

“Sounds like a blast,” Zac muttered unconvincingly.

“Free food and drinks are included, so I’m pretty much sold,” Isaac said with a shrug. “And who knows? It might actually end up being fun.” 

I wished I possessed even just an ounce of my older brother’s unfailing optimism. But all I felt was annoyance. I’d been hoping to spend the evening alone with Zac, not at some crowded party where I’d inevitably be forced into making small talk with strangers for hours on end. For Isaac’s sake, though, I made myself look on the bright side. Free alcohol in a city where the average cost of a drink was $10 certainly didn’t hurt. 

“Yeah,” I agreed, pasting a smile on my face before draining the rest of my coffee. “Who knows?”


	3. Block Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply.” - Vladimir Nabokov._

I stood before the mirror and rearranged the light blue scarf around my neck, frowning at my reflection. Yes, it was May and most people had retired their scarves until the cold weather came back around, but I wasn’t “most people.” I wore them regardless of the season. Zac had asked me once why I was so obsessed with them, but I’d thrown a sarcastic response back at him in lieu of providing an actual answer. I honestly didn’t know exactly why I was drawn to them, but I supposed they made me feel safe. At the very least, they gave me something to hide behind as I weathered through my chaotic life, feeling constantly exposed and on display. 

A pair of warm hands gripped my waist and my frown curved into a slight smile as I leaned back into Zac’s touch. 

“Are you finally done primping?” he asked, his fingertips working beneath the thin fabric of my t-shirt and dancing along my sides.

“I wasn’t primping.”

“Whatever you say,” he said with a chuckle, raising an eyebrow at me with obvious skepticism. 

“Do I look okay, though?” I asked as I surveyed our reflections, running a hand through the sun-streaked locks I was beginning to wish I’d never cut. In a washed out Weezer t-shirt, faded jeans, and flip flops, Zac was the perfect example of a casual partygoer, whereas I was sure I looked ridiculous. My jeans hung too low on my hips, my shirt was at least a size too small, and my boots made my outfit look far too formal. To top it all off, the dark bags beneath my eyes made it seem that I hadn’t slept in about a month, even though I’d actually gotten a _very_ decent night’s sleep the day before. 

Zac laughed softly then, placing his hands on my shoulders and spinning me around to face him. He smelled like soap with a subtle side of aftershave, although a fair amount of stubble still remained. The unshaved, rugged look was something Zac could pull off amazingly well (in fact, it somehow made him look even hotter), but whenever I tried it, I ended up looking like a grungy, forgetful old man. I sighed and tried to force down the self-deprecating thoughts that were appearing more and more frequently as time wore on. He seemed to know exactly what I was thinking as he traced his finger along my bottom lip, his eyes searching mine.

“You always look more than okay,” he said, his lips finding mine as if his words hadn’t been a good enough answer. 

I threaded my fingers through his hair, unable to get enough of how soft and silky it was. I’d never admitted this to him, but I borrowed his shampoo from time to time, hoping that my hair would eventually acquire some of his effortless luster and volume. But deep down, I knew that his hair products didn’t hold the secret to his glowing good looks. He was simply growing more and more beautiful with age, whereas I was aging while trying to keep a firm hold on the flawless, youthful image most of the world had come to measure me against. It was like I was constantly being forced to live in the shadow of who I used to be, and it was painful and confining. It was suffocating.

“Taylor?” Zac murmured into my ear.

“Hmm?”

“Nevermind,” he said, shaking his head as he stepped back, creating a shallow space between us.

“No, what is it?”

“I just… if something’s bothering you, you can talk to me about it,” he said. “This is a lot more to me than just sex, you know?”

I nodded, backing up until the backs of my knees collided with the bed, causing me to sink down onto it. “I know.”

“And I know that you’re used to dealing with everything on your own, without anyone’s advice or help, but it doesn’t have to be like that. You don’t have to hold it all inside,” Zac continued as he sat down beside me, his voice quiet but firm. “I can only imagine how exhausting it must be for you sometimes.”

I nodded again, more grateful for his candid words than I was able to articulate. I hated feeling sorry for myself—and the only thing worse than self-pity was other people feeling sorry for me—but Zac’s voice carried so much more than that, filled with such absolute and genuine concern. He _understood_ me in a way that no one else did. He’d seen me reach rock bottom and rise back up again, yet he didn’t judge me for any of the poor, life-altering decisions that I’d made. Sometimes I believed I was to blame for the mess his own life had become, which made me feel a different sort of pain. Maybe the fact that I’d gotten married at nineteen was reason enough for Zac to propose to Kate before he was really ready. Maybe the fact that so much of my life fell outside of the realm of normalcy and reason made his existence much more messy and complicated than it was ever supposed to be. But instead of hating me for that, instead of pushing me away, he was right here loving me, his heart beating a low and steady rhythm next to mine. 

My hand found his and I squeezed it, willing the thoughts away. I refused to get so caught up in the tangled chaos of my mind that it stopped me from appreciating what was right in front of me. When I turned my head to his curious gaze, I flashed him a reassuring smile.

“If and when I need to talk, I’ll talk. But for now, I’m okay,” I said honestly and stood from the bed, pulling him up with me. After giving my appearance just one more thorough inspection in the mirror, I decided that something was missing and rooted through my suitcase until I found it. 

“Oh no. There’s no way in hell you’re wearing that fucking hat,” Zac said, quickly snatching the large black fedora off of my head and keeping it out of reach.

I huffed and turned away from him, hearing the soft thud of the hat as it landed back in my suitcase. I knew he would react that way (he’d always hated that fedora) but hey, can’t blame a guy for trying. 

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I pushed my way through throngs of people and into the “block party” we’d been invited to, Zac and Isaac following closely behind. It took me all of five seconds to decide that it really wasn’t my scene. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed a good party; I wasn’t _that_ old. But so many of the events we went to these days were forced and contrived, and I could tell that this was one of them. This was nothing but a random assortment of people thrown together, lured into close quarters by the prospect of free booze and debauchery. 

A man I’d never seen before clapped me on the back and yelled out a greeting that got lost in the noise swirling in the air around us. I smiled at him uneasily before brushing past him, nearly choking on a cloud of smoke from someone else’s cigarette. When we were on tour, I had to interact with hundreds of strangers on a daily basis. I was used to shaking hands, exchanging a few generic phrases, and moving on. But being at a party where I was expected to do the same just seemed ridiculous to me. Then again, there had never been clear lines separating work and play in my life before, so I wasn’t sure why I suddenly expected that to change.

I scanned the crowd for a familiar face, hoping to find just _one_ person I could talk to without needing to be fake. While I searched, I watched Isaac break away from us and grab a beer from one of the many coolers that lined the narrow street. Within moments, he’d fallen into a comfortable conversation with a group of well-groomed yet slightly emo-looking men. He fit right in with his designer suit, skinny jeans, and five hundred dollar sunglasses. I turned around to glance at Zac and share a secret laugh, but was surprised to find him crouched over the cooler Ike had just walked away from. Zac had seriously cut back on drinking ever since he found out Kate was pregnant. His wife always had an extremely low tolerance for alcohol, but her raging hormones made her attitude even worse than usual, and I suspected that Zac had simply chosen to respect her wishes rather than fight a losing battle. 

But Kate was hundreds of miles away, and her rules didn’t apply tonight. That much was clear as he deftly uncapped a bottle of beer and guzzled half of it in a single swig. He swallowed loudly and then fished through the cooler for another bottle, tossing it to me. 

“Here’s to the best fucking party in L.A.,” Zac said, his voice laced with sarcasm. 

“Cheers.” I touched the neck of my bottle to his before letting the cool, bitter liquid slide down my throat.

The next hour passed by in a similar fashion. Zac and I didn’t stray far from what grew to become our own private stash of beer. I wasn’t keeping count, but I knew that I’d had quite a few, and the more I drank, the more tolerable the world around me became. A pleasant, numbing haze spread outward from the pit of my stomach and settled across my surroundings like a blanket. I tipped the last remaining drops of beer into my mouth and then reached into the cooler for another.

“Having fun yet?” I asked Zac.

He shrugged, a long strand of hair falling across his forehead at the sudden motion. His eyes were glassy as they washed over me, letting me know that he was just as buzzed as I was. When he leaned in, his hand grazed the bare skin of my arm and I shivered at the contact. To the people around us, the touch probably looked innocent enough, but it still felt dangerous and more than a little bit thrilling to be this close to him in public. 

“I’d be having a lot more fun if we were fucking,” he whispered into my ear.

I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling a jolt somewhere deep inside that triggered a fiery blush across my cheeks. 

“We can’t,” I said, my voice choked and raspy.

“We can try,” he replied.

“No, I mean we really, _really_ can’t.”

“C’mon,” he said as if he hadn’t even heard me, tossing his empty bottle into the trash bin behind him. He began to move away from me but turned on his heel sharply, having sensed that I was hesitating. He licked his lips and offered me a crooked smile. “Relax. Nothing bad’s gonna happen, I promise. Just follow my lead.” 

I took a long drink from the bottle gripped tightly in my fist and watched the curve of his ass as he walked away. There was so much noise around me—music blaring, people laughing, loud voices mingling and clashing—and yet I could hear nothing but the low, intoxicating hum of desire, drawing me toward him like a siren's song. Why was I in control of every single aspect of my life _except_ for him? Why did he break through my typically rational thoughts and erase the lines between sanity and recklessness, between right and obvious wrong? Why did I allow him to have such an amazing sense of power over me?

I was far too horny and far too drunk to answer the questions spinning through my muddled brain, so I cast them aside and fell into step behind him as he led us away from the crowd and into a secluded alleyway tucked away at the end of the moonlit street.


	4. Collisions in an Alleyway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing sacred about myself or any human being, that we were all machines, doomed to collide and collide and collide.” - Kurt Vonnegut._

“This is a terrible idea,” I said, following Zac down the gravel path that grew darker and more narrow with each new footstep. 

“I think it just might be the best idea I’ve ever had,” he argued, slowing to a stop and stealing the half-empty bottle from my hand. As he gulped from it shamelessly, his eyes sparkling with tiny flecks of light from the moon that hung closely overhead, my cell phone rang, reverberating through the otherwise silent alleyway. I cursed under my breath and pulled it from my pocket, staring daggers at the screen. The absolute last thing that needed to happen right now was my iPhone revealing our not so hidden hiding place to the dozens of people mingling in the street. 

I’d planned on turning it off without actually answering the call, but I faltered when I saw my wife’s name flash up at me. We hadn’t really talked in days. My guilt-ridden conscience won out in the end and I drew the phone up to my ear, moving slightly away from Zac as I greeted her quietly. 

“Hey.”

“Hey!” she replied brightly. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Um… kind of? We’re at this pre-party thing for the charity event tomorrow.”

“Well, I won’t keep you long. I just put the kids to bed and wanted to say goodnight.”

She then began filling me in on random bits and pieces of her life since we’d last spoken. As she talked, Zac slung an arm around my waist and guided me back against him. His breath was warm on my tingling skin, his lips hovering just above the ear not currently occupied by my cell phone. When he grinded his hips into mine, I felt his erection press against the back of my thigh. A strangled moan was just dying to escape from my lungs, but I refused to let it out. I bit my lip and hoped like hell that this surprise conversation ended soon, because I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. And then, as if he’d read my mind and decided that he hadn’t tortured me enough, his mouth descended on my neck, sucking lightly. 

It was no secret that Zac loved to play with boundaries, and while he sometimes went a bit too far, he usually knew when to step back and not actually cross the line. But I was worried that he was so drunk at the moment that he couldn’t even _see_ the lines. I tried to pull away from him, but his strong hand secured itself around me with even more determination, his tongue burning a hot trail across my exposed collarbone. 

“Taylor? Is everything okay?” Natalie asked, sounding mildly suspicious of my silence. 

While I doubted her suspicions were anything close to accurate, the thought of her discovering our forbidden affair sent a tremor of fear through my body that rivaled my wild arousal. She couldn’t find about us—not now, and not ever. If she did, my life would be over. As long as I played by her select set of rules, she in turn climbed into the role of the nurturing wife, adaptable, patient, and loyal. But when she was wronged, she was capable of becoming the worst sort of ruthless bitch. And my relationship with Zac was far beyond wrong. If she knew what we’d done—what we were, in fact, _still doing_ —she would hammer me relentlessly with the consequences I deserved and force me to absorb the pain and shame I’d put her through, stopping only when I was completely and utterly destroyed. And there was no way I could blame her.

No, if my entire world crumbled to pieces at my feet, if it ever actually came to that, then I’d be forced to live with my damned fate. I’d have no other choice. After all, I was the one who started this. I was the one who fell in love with my own _brother_. I was the one who harbored strange, conflicting, overwhelming feelings for him for so many years that they eventually became an integral part of me. I’d had more than enough time to ponder every possible outcome of acting on those feelings, but despite how socially, morally, and lawfully unacceptable they were, I’d gone ahead and done it anyway. And Zac had let me.

When he hooked his finger through my empty belt loop and tugged downward, his lips working so furiously on my neck now that I was sure they’d leave a mark, I was brought swiftly back to reality. Nat was much too quiet, the tense silence leading me to believe that she was waiting for my response to a question I hadn’t even heard, let alone processed an answer to. 

“Tay?” she asked again, her voice tightening across the line.

“Sorry.” _Yes, Natalie, I’m sorry that I’ve lost the ability to have a perfectly normal telephone conversation with you because my little brother is molesting me in an alleyway._ “Listen, I should probably go. I’ll call you when I’m back at the hotel, okay?”

“I’m sure I’ll already be asleep by then. Why don’t you just call me in the morning?”

“Alright,” I said, my eyes closing as Zac’s fingers crept across my jean-clad thigh toward my erection. “Send the kids my love.” 

Oh, God. I was a sick and horrible human being for talking to my wife about my children when Zac was practically fondling me. I was surely going to hell for this. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but respond to his eager touch, my hips rocking purposefully against him. 

“Goodnight, Taylor,” she said softly. Her words were thick with disappointment, not anger. I’d hurt her yet again without even trying to. I ended the call with a frustrated sigh and silenced my phone to prevent a repeat occurrence.

“You shouldn’t have answered,” he said, although he had to know that he was only rubbing salt into the wound. 

I spun around to face him, catching his eyes accusingly. “ _You_ shouldn’t have been fucking with me like that while I was talking to her!”

“Whatever,” he replied with a shrug. “You seemed to be enjoying it.”

Sadly enough, I couldn’t argue with that. So instead, I snatched my beer bottle back from him and took a long drink, casting my gaze up toward the barely visible stars embedded in the sprawling darkness. Despite the obvious light pollution, the sky was breathtaking, almost too easy to get lost in. I was rarely allowed the luxury of simply soaking up the beauty of my natural surroundings. Before I knew it, Zac was pulling me against him again, only this time the embrace lacked that sense of carnal urgency. His hands moved in slow, almost hesitant circles as they smoothed across the skin beneath my t-shirt, his lips a mere whisper against my jaw. 

As good as he was at working me up, he was possibly even better at calming me down. He was barely even touching me and I was almost completely relaxed against him. He kissed a gentle pattern across my cheek and sighed against the corner of my mouth, sounding just as peaceful as I felt. 

“You were right—it probably was a dumb idea for us to sneak off like that, but I couldn’t help it. You make me crazy,” he said, a certain lucidity standing out against the raspy lust in his voice. He appeared calm, almost _too_ calm, like the uncharacteristically still waters before a fierce and sudden storm. 

And I barely had time to blink before the storm burst through the silence and descended in full force. He advanced toward me and backed me up against the wall, reigniting the desperate fire between us. I moaned into his mouth, gasping for air as my shoulders smacked into the rough stone surface behind me. The beer bottle slipped from my loosened grasp and fell to the ground before I could stop it. The tinny collision shook through me and I jumped, but Zac didn’t even flinch. He barely gave me time to process one emotion before throwing another one at me. But that was simply how Zac was—he was always several steps ahead of me, and I was forever struggling to keep up.

“You're doing it again right now, you know,” he growled, his finger dancing across my stomach and dipping between my thighs. “Driving me crazy in those fucking tight jeans.”

The haze across his eyes let me know that he was definitely still intoxicated. I knew that I was, too, but the dizziness that threatened to knock me off of my feet had precious little to do with alcohol. I was drunk on _him_ , on the way he sounded and smelled and tasted. On his ability to make me feel more in a span of five minutes than Natalie had made me feel in all of our years together. I was terrified of watching my youth slip away, but Zac kept me young, he kept my heart beating, he pumped new life through my veins. 

And right now, I needed him more than I needed anything.

When he kissed me, I could’ve sworn that the ground beneath me trembled, but maybe my body was what was shaking as he covered my skin with his strong, soft lips. For someone who was fairly inexperienced when it came to sex, Zac consistently amazed me with his seemingly natural talents. Then again, he’d always been both eager to try and quick to pick up new skills. I, on the other hand, was far more cautious. I feared and loathed failure of any kind, it wasn’t part of my vocabulary, and so I tended to only dive into things I already knew I was good at. But hey, at least sex happened to be one of those things.

My tongue darted between his lips as he deftly unbuttoned my pants and pushed them down my hips violently. The refreshing evening breeze was a deep, thrilling contrast to the warmth of his fingers as they wrapped around me. I bucked helplessly into his hand and the corners of his mouth twitched, his eyes ablaze with equal parts amusement and arousal.

“Fuck, you really want this, don’t you?” he murmured, his thumb brushing across the sensitive head of my cock. 

“Yes,” I gasped.

“You want me to fuck you right here?”

“Oh, God…”

He leaned in impossibly close, leaving a trail of harsh kisses from my jaw all the way up to my ear. I held my breath and waited for his next move. The air between us was so still that I could not only feel but hear the frantic skips of our heartbeats.

“I’ll do whatever you tell me to,” he breathed.

But before I could say anything, the unmistakable smell of marijuana drifted into the alley, followed by bursts of loud, unbridled laughter that broke right through the silence. The sounds bounced off of the wall behind me I froze, my heart actually slamming to a halt inside my ribcage before threatening to leap up out of my throat and explode in a messy, chaotic display. When I finally remembered how to function, I yanked my pants up in haste and stepped quickly out of Zac’s embrace, who looked like he too had been momentarily paralyzed. His eyes were wide and unreadable, his chest rising and falling so rapidly that I feared he would soon pass out. The combined terror we were feeling was palpable, as thick as the moonlight that held us in a stronghold. I continued moving away from him until there was a safe enough distance between us, and only then did I allow myself to turn my head and glance in the direction of the noise. 

And when I did, _I_ was the one who almost passed out.

“Holy fucking shit,” came a voice I hadn’t heard in years.


	5. Quicksand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting.” - Sylvia Plath._

Alex Greenwald is a lot like quicksand. He’s just that easy to fall into. You hardly even notice him at first, but when he grabs you, you’re sucked in and rendered weak and helpless against him. The next thing you know, you’re sinking and spinning in the whirlpool and can’t tell the difference between the sky and the bottomless ground beneath you. 

When I met him almost exactly a decade ago after a Phantom Planet show at the L.A. House of Blues, I was already drowning, the reality of becoming a father and a husband earlier than I ever expected having violently shattered the image of the charmed and selfish future I always thought was ahead of me. I’d never felt so cornered or so trapped. Looking back, maybe I could have said no to both Natalie and my father, who were choking me at every turn with new and terrifying responsibilities. Maybe I should have.

But at the time, I was having trouble saying no to anyone.

So when Alex waltzed over (yes, he had a way of walking that made it look like he was dancing across the floor), introduced me to his bandmates, and invited me to the afterparty at his bass player Sam’s place, it only made sense for me to continue in the vein of taking whatever life threw my way. 

Each new temptation that Alex lured me in with was more dangerous and exciting than the last. Drugs and alcohol had been within my reach for as long as I could remember, but I acted like I couldn’t see them. Our parents had instilled within us a very strong moral sense, and maybe it was my imagination, but they definitely seemed to spend a bit more time warning me about the certain consequences of getting mixed up with those things. I’d always assumed they were especially worried about me because I was the one people paid the most attention to, thus the one cursed with the obligation to uphold a flawless reputation both in and out of the public eye. But looking back, maybe my parents had recognized my addictive personality early on and were frantically trying to kick the habits before they had a chance to form.

They couldn’t protect me forever, though. And I didn’t want them to. I was so damn tired of people breathing down my neck and thinking they knew what was best for me when they had no fucking clue. So when Alex handed me my first cigarette, I hesitated for only as long as it took to get used to the feeling of the foreign object between my fingers. It was small but surprisingly heavy, and as I awkwardly exhaled, I felt the weight escaping my body in a burst of smoke that stung my lungs and face. It hurt, but I can’t quite describe how _good_ it felt to let go of at least a little bit of what I’d been forced to carry. I was only nineteen, but I felt like I’d already lived through a lifetime of pain and suffering.

One cigarette led to hours of chain-smoking, much like one beer led to a handle of strong vodka being passed around in Sam’s basement. I’d arrived at the party with my brothers but had lost track of them long ago. For all I knew, they’d grown tired of the scene and had already left without me. At the time, I was torn between never, ever wanting Zac to see me like that and wanting him to see _everything_ ; there was so much I was holding inside and lying about. I fell asleep on the floor by myself and woke up beside Alex in someone else’s bed, fully-clothed and reeking of disaster and feeling incredibly free. It was a breakthrough of sorts. And it was also the beginning of a keening downward spiral. 

My brothers and I spent a month in L.A. under the pretense of cramming in as much work as possible before my shotgun wedding. But no real work was actually accomplished. We all agreed that it was pointless to spend time and energy on recording new songs when everything about the structure of our band was about to change. Plus, I was so overwhelmed, caught between feeling everything and nothing on a daily basis, that I considered myself far too unstable to be productive. So my new job involved digging a hole so dark and deep that I wouldn’t be able to find my way out. 

That party with Alex was the first of many—so many that I eventually lost count. Pretty soon, I wasn’t just smoking and drinking, I was tossing back pills and cutting cocaine lines with the same passion and diligence I threw into making music. The night that Alex kissed me, I was impossibly high. We were in the cramped bedroom of his apartment and we were both shirtless and I briefly wondered how we got there. But I stopped asking questions the moment his warm lips met mine and all I could taste was the bitter mixture of freedom and corruption. It was sinful and delicious—I wanted more—but he wouldn’t give it to me.

“I could break you in an instant, you know. And that scares me,” he whispered into my ear. His hands were on my lower back, fingernails digging into my skin in a way that made me ache.

“I’m already broken,” came my reply.

His dark eyes filled with shadows but he laughed and kissed me deeply, like he was agreeing with me while assuring me that I’d never been more wrong. Most nights found us just like that, in his bed under various influences, Alex resisting my every attempt to get him to go just a little bit further. I was testing my own limits, too. I needed to see how far I would go. I was wrecking my marriage before it even began, allowing unfaithfulness to creep in like a thief that lingered but never actually stole anything. Alex knew how scared I was. He looked past the mask I’d learned to wear and saw inside to the core of my fear. The fear that I was dying while still very much alive. And each kiss we shared, no matter how gentle or callous or endless or fleeting, seemed to confirm it. 

We never kissed in public—we may have been reckless, but we weren’t stupid. But despite our steadfast claims of being “just friends,” the rumors flew anyway; people seemed to love and hate the idea of me being with the tall, mysterious, dark-haired singer just as much as I did. Our publicist quickly swept the accusations under the rug and highlighted my upcoming nuptials instead, assuring the world that Taylor Hanson didn’t have room for grungy (albeit beautiful) rockstars in his life. Not when he was about to become a family man.

My friendship with Alex ended as abruptly and startlingly as it had first been ignited. Just a few days before my dreaded return to Tulsa, he stopped answering my calls. At first, I simply figured he was busy with upcoming tour plans, but when three days passed with no response to my various attempts to contact him, I took the hint and gave up. Initially, I was upset about having been cast aside without so much as a warning, but I’d grown so accustomed to people drifting in and out of my life that it was relatively easy for me to move on without closure. After all, it wasn’t like I really had a choice. The future that awaited me back home was something he never could have been a part of anyway. So I deleted his number from my phone and tried to erase the image of his piercing black eyes that seemed to know how to see right through me. 

Zac and Isaac were uncharacteristically silent in the midst of my unraveling. If they ever caught onto the fact that the rumors about Alex and me weren’t entirely untrue, they hid it well. But I wasn’t so selfish or blind not to have realized that they were dealing with their own things, too. Getting Natalie pregnant was _my_ mistake but it obviously affected all of us. It went completely against the angelic image we’d struggled to maintain for so many years, and it was no secret that we woke up each day thinking, _This could be the end._ My brothers stopped coming with me to those wild L.A. parties but they never once prevented me from doing as I pleased. For the first time in my life, it seemed like they were actually afraid of me, and I couldn’t blame them. My reflection was a scary sight to behold, my eyes black and blue and hollow, just like a bruise. We talked every day but avoided certain topics like the plague. There was a quiet distance between us that let me know they felt just as helpless as I did. 

But then, Zac did something that effectively smashed through the barriers separating us. We were at LAX waiting for our flight back to Tulsa (which I hoped and prayed, by some miracle, would be delayed indefinitely), and just as soon as I turned away from the Starbucks counter with my extra large coffee in hand, Zac reached out and grabbed my arm forcefully. 

“Is it over?” he asked me, looking so small and yet so much older than his sixteen years. 

I had no idea what he was referring to—my relationship with Alex, my cocaine addiction, my life as I knew it—but I nodded _yes_ all the same. It was the only answer I could give. His eyes searched mine for what felt like an hour as I watched them flicker through a spectrum of emotions I didn’t know he had the capacity to feel. His grip on my wrist grew less and less intense over time until he was just barely touching me, but it was clear that he desperately wanted to hold onto the same thing I could sense slipping away. He was shaken up and admittedly, so was I, although I doubted the forbidden love that swelled and threatened to rise up out of me was anything close to what was making him tremble. We were surrounded by a flurry of noise and motion, but it all fell away as we stood facing each other in that crowded airport terminal. All I could focus on were his eyes and how unbearably sad they looked. In that moment, I was closer to Zac than I’d ever been before. 

“Taylor Hanson,” Alex announced, yanking me out of my accidental reverie. 

I blinked through the curtain of memories and he slowly came into focus. He was taller than I remembered, his hair shorter than it had been all those years ago but still much longer than mine. I did some very quick math in my head and figured out that he was thirty-two by now but looked a lot older, an unfortunate fact that I could relate to all too well. His eyes caught mine as he took a hit, a completely unreadable half-smile on his lips. It was quiet now—too quiet—and I glanced around to find that we were alone. Where were his friends? More importantly, where was Zac?

I nodded dumbly, because despite all that had changed over the last decade, at least my name was the same. He dropped the spent joint to the ground and advanced toward me in his signature lazy rhythm that he’d used in his approach on the night we first met. He was close enough to touch me but he did nothing but stare directly into me for several long moments, his coal-black eyes a striking contrast to the glimmering light of the moon.

And then he leaned in and kissed me, backing me up against the same wall Zac had pinned me to just minutes ago. He tasted like weed and the innocence I’d lost ten years ago.

“Long time, no see,” he said after pulling away.


	6. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The photos of me when I was a kid… well, they've started to give me a little pang or something—not unhappiness, exactly, but some kind of quiet, deep regret… I keep wanting to apologize to the little guy: ‘I'm sorry, I've let you down. I was the person who was supposed to look after you, but I blew it: I made wrong decisions at bad times, and I turned you into me.’” - Nick Hornby._

One thing I never forgot about Alex was his ability to stare me down. Over the years, I’d grown accustomed to having people’s eyes on me. Don’t get me wrong, it still bothered me to feel harshly scrutinized by those who barely knew me, but it happened so frequently that I eventually just accepted it. What other choice did I have? But Alex was different. He wasn’t like our fans; he didn’t gaze at me like I was a god to be worshiped or a piece of meat to be devoured. No, he looked past what everyone else saw on the surface and drilled a hole right through me. I normally hated feeling exposed in any way, but I couldn’t deny the thrill of his dark eyes following my every move.

At that moment, though, I wasn’t moving. I wasn’t speaking. I was barely even breathing. It was like I’d forgotten how to do anything but stand there and watch the light of the moon reflect off of his cheekbones. He exhaled slowly and pursed his lips together without saying anything more. I knew that he was waiting for me.

“It’s been awhile,” I finally said. My voice, weak and raspy, betrayed me as it broke the silence. I could still taste the lingering hints of weed from his kiss along with the tangy sweetness left behind from Zac’s lips. My stomach churned and I felt dizzy, so I dropped my eyes to the ground to steady myself. 

“You look good,” he nodded, stepping toward me once again. “Older and like you haven’t slept in years. But still damn good.”

Laughter escaped me suddenly, surprising both of us. Alex was nothing if not absolutely to the point. I was used to bullshitting when it came to so many people and things, but not him. He never let me get away with it. He was like Zac in that way. 

“I guess some things never change,” I replied with a shrug, and from the subtle smirk that crept across his face, I knew he understood. It was my way of returning the compliment. 

He leaned in and I glanced up, catching my own hazy reflection in his eyes. I hadn’t been this close to him in _years_ , and given how we’d parted, our reunion should have been awkward as hell. One look at him should have sent me running in the opposite direction, because he’d reeled me in and then cast me aside and had never been anything but trouble. But his power over me was still as strong as it had been ten years ago, and as much as I hated to admit it, I’d missed it. I’d missed _him_.

“It figures that I’d catch you tucked away in some abandoned alley,” he said, brushing past me to situate himself along the wall that I was resting against. “You were always good at hiding.”

 _And you were always good at finding me_ , came my silent reply. 

“Did you know that I’d be here?” I asked. “At the party, I mean.”

He shrugged. “I heard you guys were headlining the show tomorrow, so chances were pretty good that I’d run into you. That’s not why I’m here, though.”

“No?” I raised my eyebrows, feigning shock. 

“Nope,” he said. “I’m actually a guest of honor, just like you.”

I narrowed my eyes, the surprise on my face suddenly much more genuine than it had been moments before. “Seriously? But I thought…”

“That Phantom Planet bit the dust?” Alex leaned back against the wall and laughed, but there was nothing amusing about the shadows that slid across his eyes. He looked even older than I felt, which was quite an accomplishment. “Yeah, that’s what everyone thought. Hell, _we_ even believed it for awhile. But we’re back in business now. Or at least, we’re trying to inch our way back in. The gig tomorrow is just to help us get our feet wet before our reunion tour in June.”

I’d never admit this to him, but when I heard that Phantom Planet was going on an indefinite hiatus a few years back, I’d initially felt very smug. I should have been sensitive to their situation; after all, our band had battled through our share of rough waters and I knew from personal experience how utterly terrifying it was to be forced to put not only your dreams, but your livelihood on hold. There was a time when we too believed that we were done for, when the possibility of losing everything we’d ever worked toward crept closer and closer with each passing day. When the people in our lives who had once cheered us on suddenly began to mimic the deprecating voice inside my head that told me over and over again, _you’re just not good enough_. Thankfully, we made it out alive (although just barely). But not everyone was as driven or as fortunate as my brothers and I, and I figured that Alex’s band would quietly fade away just like so many others did. Measuring my success against his failure, I felt like I’d won. Yes, it was childish and petty, but from the day I first met him, he’d wielded such obvious control over me, and it was nice to know that he was capable of breaking.

But those feelings vanished the moment I saw the sad struggle in his eyes. It hit a little too close to home and a swell of emotions surged through me, making me tremble. I suddenly wished I’d taken a few hits of the joint he’d been smoking. I wasn’t at all prepared for this.

“You know, you’re a hell of a lot more boring than I remember,” he said when I didn’t respond, a lopsided grin claiming his lips as he folded his arms across his chest. “Please don’t tell me that getting shackled ruined all of that amazing wit and charm.”

I tried to return the smile, but my attempt was halfhearted at best. The truth was that my life in general over the last decade had worn me down. I used to have so much energy and passion, I could actually feel it bursting out of me at random moments throughout each and every day. Some of the sparks were still there, but they were mostly dying embers now, and it took a lot out of me to keep them alive. I saw the years etched into my skin every time I stared at my reflection, and sometimes I wanted nothing more than to shove my fist into the mirror and watch it crack into a thousand pieces, destroying me along with it. 

But all I could do was shrug helplessly, my eyes shifting to the ground once again.

“How does she feel about you being away so often?” he asked. Although my gaze was trained on the scraps of gravel beneath my feet, I knew that he was still watching me.

“Natalie?” My mouth struggled to form her name just like it always did. It never felt natural to say it, not even after being married for ten long years. “I mean, I know she wants me home, but she’s used to it by now. It’s not like she didn’t know exactly what she was getting herself into.”

“You didn’t, though, did you?”

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. No, I didn’t. I had no fucking clue. I didn’t know that one accidental pregnancy would eventually lead to three more children and a life so crowded that I barely had room to breathe anymore. 

“You were just a kid back then,” Alex said, his voice softer now, almost soothing. I’d almost forgotten that as callous as he appeared, his presence was really quite comforting. “How could you have known?”

“We’re renewing our vows next month,” I said, my eyes popping open at the admission. The words hung in the air as if begging for me to reach out and take them back. But I couldn’t erase the fact that it was happening. In fact, that was probably the real reason she had called me earlier. Apparently, our second wedding needed to be just as stressful and elaborate as our first.

“Shit,” he breathed. 

_My thoughts exactly._

I glanced up at the sky and was rattled by how hollow and empty it was. That thick blanket of darkness studded with stars had been so beautiful to me just a half-hour ago, but now it looked artificial and cheap and entirely replaceable. 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” I replied as thin clouds drifted by overhead. 

“No, I mean it. I’m really fucking sorry for cutting you out of my life like that.”

I turned toward him curiously, cautiously, my eyes wide and unblinking. 

“When we first started messing around, I thought it would be fun and mostly harmless, just like everything else in my life. And for awhile, it was,” he mused. “But one day, I woke up and realized that it wasn’t just about partying and being stupid and drunk and horny—that I really _cared_ about you—so naturally, I freaked the fuck out and ran, even though I shouldn’t have. I should have at least talked to you before you left.” 

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No,” I repeated firmly. “It can’t.” 

He caught his bottom lip between his teeth and studied me, looking like he had something else to say but ultimately decided against letting it out. “Okay, then.”

“Well, it’s getting late. I should go find my brothers,” I said, a hint of an apology in my tone although we both knew that my words were nothing more than a lame excuse to leave. “I’ll see you around.”

“See ya.”

For the first time that night, he was looking at me without really seeing me. We might as well have been two strangers who had never met. 

*** * * * * * * * * ***

The hotel room was so still and silent that had I not almost tripped over a heap of Zac’s clothing after crossing the threshold, I wouldn’t have even known he was there. According to Isaac, he’d left the party long before I had, claiming that he was tired and bored out of his mind. And while there was probably some truth to that, I knew that wasn’t the real reason that he’d fled. When my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, I could just barely make out his silhouette, his long hair fanned out across the plump pillow nestled under his head.

I kicked off my boots and got undressed, feeling heavier instead of lighter as each layer was shed. I pulled on a pair of flannel pants thrown haphazardly across the arm of the chair facing the bed, knowing that they belonged to Zac. After brushing my teeth, I slipped beneath the covers, shifting my weight carefully to avoid waking him while I searched for a comfortable position. Nothing I did brought me even a hint of comfort, though. I could still taste Alex’s lips against mine and could still feel Zac’s rough hands on me, the contrasting sensations blending together and forming a sickening pool of guilt in my gut. 

My thoughts were spinning and I knew that sleep had already outrun me, so I stopped trying to chase it and rolled onto my side, watching his shoulder muscles ripple each time he breathed. And soon I was touching him, tracing my index finger along the smooth skin of his neck and across the ridges of his spine. He shivered but didn’t pull away, the slight motion letting me know that he was awake now. I pressed my lips against the small of his back, eliciting another shudder and a moan that carried through the air and into my bloodstream. When he eventually turned to face me, I kissed him until our hearts raced and we were both completely out of breath.

I knew that all of my regrets would come crashing back down on me in the morning, but in that moment, I needed to lose myself in him and forget about every terrible mistake I’d ever made.


	7. I Don't Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“When the stage lights dimmed on the fading scrim, it was morning before the cheering died. Is it too late to tell you that I don't mind?” – The Decemberists._

We’d been a band long enough to know that it was never fun to do an early soundcheck after a late night of partying. Yet that didn’t stop us from being loud and reckless or from drinking far more than we should, effectively abusing our voices and our bodies mere hours before we were scheduled to perform. 

Over the years, we’d experienced our fair share of unpleasant rehearsals, but the one before the charity event was by far the worst one we’d had in awhile. Not only had Zac and I stayed up way too late doing _other_ things after the party when we should have been sleeping, apparently Isaac had made the mistake of smoking pot with a stranger he’d befriended at the end of the night. Zac and I could handle smoking and drinking at the same time, but our older brother could not. The combination never failed to make Ike a slave to the porcelain god until sunrise, and last night was no exception. 

When the alarm went off at 9:30 AM, I wanted to ignore it and sleep the rest of the day away, but I forced myself into the shower to scrub away the grime, the guilt, and the sex from the night before. I managed make myself marginally presentable (although I certainly wasn’t happy with my bloodshot eyes or the slight gut that seemed to have grown overnight), but Zac pretty much rolled out of bed and into our rental car, and from the looks of it, Isaac did much the same. Once I’d climbed behind the wheel and put the car in drive, Zac tugged on my scarf and remarked that I was the only one who _didn’t_ need to put any effort into my appearance because the fans would always love me no matter what, but I begged to differ. Zac looked sexy, rugged, and appealing with unwashed hair and in yesterday’s clothes, but I just looked downright unclean. After a few minutes of pointless bickering and throwing a bizarre mixture of compliments and insults at each other, Ike yelled at us to shut up before he hurled all over both of us. By the time we arrived at the venue, all three of us were completely miserable, tense, and exhausted, and the day hadn’t even really started yet. Thankfully, it was an outdoor event, meaning the stage was outside and we could get away with wearing sunglasses without looking too suspicious.

We rushed through the songs we’d picked out for our forty-minute set without even bothering to fix any glaring errors along the way. Normally, I refused to let mistakes slide like that, but I was far too tired and overwhelmed to care. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt Alex’s lips against mine, followed closely by Zac’s. The stress became too much to handle and by the time we’d finished our shaky, half-assed rehearsal I was all but sprinting offstage, my fingers pressed against my throbbing temples. I knew that Zac was watching me but I didn’t stop to give him a chance to follow.

I had no idea where I was going, but I kept walking until I found myself along the outskirts of a large parking lot acting as a holding space for a variety of food trucks. I wasn’t the least bit hungry, but the alluring smell of coffee drew me toward one of the local vendors, from whom I purchased a large latte and a donut. I slumped down onto a nearby bench and took a long sip, waiting for that moment when I felt like I could actually breathe again. 

But it never came. Instead, the nervous feelings that had been eating away at me all morning continued their mission to destroy every last shred of sanity. I was usually pretty good at balancing the various ridiculous aspects of my life, but sometimes it hit me, really _hit_ me that I was married, that I had four children, and that I was involved in a sexual and emotional relationship with my little brother on the side. And it seemed like I never could protect myself against that harsh blow of reality, so I just let it knock me down and leave behind whatever marks it pleased.

“Are you planning on eating that or murdering it?”

I didn’t even realize I’d been squeezing the life out of the glazed donut I was holding until a voice caused me to look down and find my hand covered in the sticky substance. Frowning, I wiped my hand on the napkin in my lap and tossed it onto the bench beside me, setting the abused pastry on top. Luckily, I was intending on giving the donut to Zac anyway, and he never cared what shape his food was in so long as it was edible.

Alex dropped down onto the other side of the bench and offered me the ghost of a smile. Despite the permanent shadows beneath his dark eyes, he looked well-rested and energized, which was the exact opposite of how I felt. He ran a hand through his hair before smoothing it across his jean-clad thigh. When he caught me staring, he smirked, causing me to quickly redirect my gaze back down to my lap. 

“Are you always this quiet now, or is it just when you're around me?” he asked.

I finally glanced over at him to see that the grin had fallen away from his lips and he looked concerned and curious, his eyes narrowed as they fought to search mine. I sighed and eventually removed the pair of aviators I’d been hiding behind, fastening them to the collar of my shirt before speaking.

“Still haven’t recovered from last night, I guess,” I replied with a shrug.

He shifted uncomfortably, and only then did I realize the heavily implied (although unintentional) double meaning. I swallowed a large, burning gulp of coffee to prevent my foot from entering my mouth again.

“It’s like you’re afraid to be yourself around me, but you don’t have to be,” he said. “I won’t bite. Not unless you want me to…”

He wiggled his eyebrows in mock suggestiveness and I laughed, grateful that at least some of the tension between us had vanished. 

“I know. It’s just… my life has been pretty fucked up lately, and I’d rather not talk about it.”

“I can respect that. But I happen to love fucked up stories, so if you ever _do_ want to talk, I’m here.”

“Thanks.”

“No need to thank me. That’s what friends are for,” he said, his voice faltering slightly. “At least, I’d like to think we’re still friends even after–”

“Of course we are,” I interrupted, although honestly, I wasn’t sure what we were now—or what we had ever been, for that matter.

He seemed to relax at my agreement but before he could reply, his cell phone vibrated loudly, filling the air with an obnoxious rendition of ’Pour Some Sugar On Me.’ He yanked it out of his pocket and peered down at the screen for several long moments before standing up and pushing his sunglasses over his eyes. 

“Okay, duty calls, but I’ll see you at the show in a few hours?”

I nodded. 

“Try to catch some of our set if you can. Oh, and enjoy your donut!” he called over his shoulder as he walked away.

I shook my head, watching his long legs carry him into the growing sea of strangers all around us. I wanted to be mad at him—in fact, I wanted to ask him what the hell he was thinking, storming back into my life and kissing me like the last ten years hadn’t even happened. But like a tidal wave, I was just as drawn to his power as I was fearful of it. I knew he could knock me off of my feet and leave me facedown in the sand, gasping for air—he’d proven that to me years ago—but I enjoyed the excitement, the uncertainty, and the added element of danger.

I thought that as I approached thirty, I’d look back and find that my thrill-seeking days were far behind me. But clearly, I was wrong.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

When lunchtime rolled around, I still wasn’t hungry, but I forced myself to eat most of the ham and cheese sandwich Ike had retrieved from the catering tent. I’d performed on an empty stomach before and had nearly passed out onstage, which was something I vowed never to repeat.

“Who’s first on the lineup?” Zac asked through a mouthful of potato chips.

I pulled up the itinerary on my iPhone and realized that Alex’s band was scheduled to play in twenty minutes, having been assigned the earliest set time of the day. 

“Phantom Planet,” I announced.

“Sweet! I’ve missed those guys,” Isaac said. “I thought they’d broken up.”

Zac’s eyes darkened as he muttered something under his breath. Ike glanced over at him quizzically but I didn’t bother asking our little brother to repeat what he’d said. I had a feeling I didn’t want to know. 

“I guess they’re making a comeback,” I said, balling up the remains of my meal and tossing it into the trash. “Anyway, I’d like to go watch their show. You’re both free to join me.”

“I was just about to call Nikki, but when I’m done I’ll come find you guys,” Isaac said.

Judging from the look on Zac’s face, watching Phantom Planet was the absolute last thing he wanted to do, but he stood up and followed me nonetheless. When we reached the side of the stage, the crew was still setting up, and I let my eyes wash over the crowd to get a feel for what to expect for our own performance later that afternoon. I spotted a few of our diehard fans in the front row and quickly nudged my hat so that it fell across my brow, not wanting to be recognized. 

A swell of whistles and cheers pulled my eyes back to the stage to find Alex approaching the microphone. He made a quick introduction before launching into an upbeat song from their last album. I was surprised by how many people in the audience were singing along, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. Phantom Planet may not have had the same cult following that we had, but they’d always been fairly popular. Before long, I was bobbing my head and mouthing along to the songs I was familiar with. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed watching him. Most singers had to work hard to grab people’s attention, but Alex had a way of owning the stage without even trying. He moved with a firm and charming sense of confidence without appearing cocky. 

Halfway through their set, Alex switched to an acoustic guitar while his bandmates filed offstage. Apparently, it was time for a solo. 

“This song was written in the midst of a nervous breakdown,” he said, stepping away from the microphone to tune a few strings. 

A handful of people in the audience chuckled, but their laughter faded quickly once they realized that he was serious. I felt Zac’s body tense beside me but I didn’t react, unable to focus on anything but what was happening onstage. 

Alex lifted his head and his eyes caught mine, and while the look we shared couldn’t have lasted any longer than five seconds, it was so intense and piercing that it stopped my heart mid-beat.

“It’s about that one person you can’t seem to let go of,” he explained while strumming the first few opening chords.

_My eyes go where I say so but not always_  
And not when you walk by  
And my feet move where I tell them to  
But not when they are chasing after you  
And now I just don’t know what I should do  
I’m twisted all around like some cartoon  
But I don’t mind, no I don’t mind  
Just stay close by like all the time  
‘Cause either I bleed dry or keep this thorn in my side  
But I don’t mind… 

_On all fours on a hotel floor_  
My closest hand was halfway ‘round the world  
And my room’s key unbeknownst to me  
Had cut my eye as I wiped at my face  
While trying to move some heavy stuff away  
Now I’m bleeding in an unfamiliar place  
Guess I don’t mind, no I don’t mind  
As I lay down to sleep at night  
I gave a call to the crisis line  
But I don’t mind… 

_I spun the tucker telephone and I turned my eyes to bone_  
I kept dialing your number but you were not at home, you’re not alone  
And now I just don’t know what I should do  
I’m twisted all around like some cartoon 

_But I don’t mind, no I don’t mind_  
Just stay close by like all the time  
‘Cause either I bleed dry or keep this thorn in my side  
But I don’t mind… 

The applause at the end was deafening, Alex ducking his head and punctuating the performance with a raspy yet heartfelt _thank you_. With a lopsided grin, he motioned the rest of the band back onstage and only then did I let out the breath I’d been holding. After taking a long drink from my water bottle, I finally turned to face Zac…

…Only to find that he was gone.


	8. Blurred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures.” – Ally Condie._

When and how Zac had mastered the art of sneaking off unnoticed was beyond me. The little brother I knew and loved was neither quiet nor stealthy. But he’d been vanishing from right under my nose so frequently lately that either he’d gotten much better at hiding from me, or I was losing my touch when it came to keeping up with him. 

I was torn between chasing after him as soon as I discovered he was missing and waiting for him to return. Maybe he hadn’t run away after all but had just wandered off for a minute or two. But when several minutes passed by and he didn’t reappear, I had a feeling that he wasn’t coming back. Nonetheless, I decided to stick around until the end of Phantom Planet’s set before I started looking for Zac in earnest. He’d apparently turned off his cell phone, so I had to resort to good, old-fashioned searching. I checked the tented backstage area and looped around the venue’s perimeter once more to no avail. When I reached the edge of the huge parking lot, I contemplated actually pulling my hair out because that surely would have been less painful than the frustrating wild goose chase I was on. But instead I just continued walking past the endless rows of cars, trucks, and trailers that littered both the asphalt and the lawn. 

Our cramped rental car was the last place I imagined he would be, and yet, that was exactly where I found him. Well, he wasn’t actually _in_ the car but was resting against it, his head tilted slightly skyward, and a cigarette dangling from his left hand. 

Yes. A cigarette.

While I’d eventually gotten used to the fact that Zac smoked pot on occasion, I’d never seen him even so much as touch a cigarette. The sight was so foreign and startling that I stopped dead in my tracks and gaped at him, my mouth falling open in absolute shock. He simply stared back at me with a cold, unflinching gaze and exhaled a small cloud of smoke with a nonchalance implying that this was definitely _not_ his first time. 

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re being a damn fool,” I muttered, advancing toward him and yanking the cigarette from his loose grip. I threw it to the ground and stomped on it violently, thankful that now I at least had an outlet for my mounting frustration. “Where’d you get that, anyway?”

“What’s the big deal? You used to smoke all the time,” he shot back, his eyes dark and angry. “Or is this just another one of your double standards?”

“My what?” 

“Don’t play dumb. Want me to name all of the stupid shit I’ve seen you do? You’ve cheated on your wife, smoked, done drugs, played God. I might not have liked what you were doing, but I never said a word or tried to stop you. But apparently, _I’m_ not allowed to do anything that deviates from this path of innocence you seem set on me following. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a kid anymore, Taylor; I haven’t been one for a long time. So you really need to stop treating me like one.”

It was true—I _had_ done all of those things, and he hadn’t once intervened. But his harsh words triggered a very vivid memory, one I hadn’t let myself think about in years, and I suddenly felt myself deflating, like my body was actually caving in on itself.

When I first became addicted to cigarettes, our band was in a really bad place. We were trapped within the confines of an abusive record label and were wasting endless hours of our lives working on songs that never saw the light of day. Isaac and Zac tried to express their frustration through the music, but as always, I needed something more, something stronger. So I picked up the smoking habit that I thought I’d left in Alex’s bedroom, throwing myself into it with everything I had because that was the only way I knew how to do anything. My brothers were the only ones who knew about my addiction, agreeing to keep it from the rest of our family only because we were all dealing with enough stress as it was. Even Natalie never caught on—or maybe she had, but she was just as good at keeping secrets as I was.

There was one night during a particularly nightmarish month when I decided to stay behind at the studio after everyone else had gone home. I’d already put in a sixteen-hour day and was at (if not past) the point of delirium, but I forced myself to keep going, thinking that maybe if I worked just a bit harder, I could finally crack the code to get us out of this mess and back into the rewarding career we deserved. 

Eventually I had to take a break, so I fished my pack of cigarettes and trusty lighter out of my pocket before slumping down onto the couch. I wasn’t allowed to smoke in the studio, but I didn’t care. I was convinced that I needed that stupid fucking cancer stick more badly than I’d ever needed _anything_. I vaguely remember lighting it, but everything else faded away into a thick haze of exhaustion. My eyes opened to the smell of burning and Zac shaking me awake while he screamed. I’d passed out, the cigarette falling from my hand and nearly setting fire to the couch beneath me. If Zac hadn’t decided to drive back to the studio in the middle of the night to check on me, I probably would have died.

“Maybe you should have,” I said quietly, blinking away the bitter tears that threatened to fall across my eyes at the memory.

“What?”

“Maybe you should have said something… should have tried to stop me.” 

Maybe that was all I’d wanted, all along—someone to knock some sense into me, to remind me that I was still alive.

“You wouldn’t have listened to me and you know it.” His words were heavy, weighed down by sorrow. “You would have just cast me aside and done whatever you wanted. Much like you’re doing now.”

“I’m not even going to pretend I know what you mean by that,” I said softly.

“Taylor, I could have smoked an entire fucking _pack_ of cigarettes back there and you wouldn’t have even noticed. Hell, there could’ve been a tornado spinning right above your head and you wouldn’t have been able to tear your eyes from the stage. I can’t believe you’re letting him suck you in all over again.”

“So, this is about Alex.”

If it was indeed about Alex, then it all made perfect sense. The mood swings, the low blows, and the disappearing acts were all telltale signs of jealousy. I sighed and closed my eyes, the pain by my temples growing more unbearable with each passing second. We had to play a show in just a few short hours and I was running low on energy and patience as it was. But while this really wasn’t a discussion I wanted to have right now (or ever, for that matter), I had a feeling that the gap between us would just keep widening the longer we put it off. 

“It’s obvious that he wants you,” he mumbled, his eyes finally softening, but not thanks to anything even remotely close to happiness. 

His sad, vulnerable tone made me want to hug him and I honestly almost did just that. But when I remembered where we were and how risky that would be, my hand abandoned its mission halfway to his waist and settled on touching his wrist gently instead. I wanted to reassure him that he had nothing to worry about, but how could I make such a promise when I was so unclear about the mess in my own head? I’d let Alex kiss me, after all, and I couldn’t deny that there was _something_ between us. Did it even come close to what Zac and I shared? Of course not. But it was still something. 

My hand fell away from him as the guilt closed in on me, making it difficult to breathe. It seemed that no matter how good or honest of a person I tried to be, I was always lying about something, always hurting someone I cared about. Would confessing that Alex and I kissed last night accomplish anything other than rubbing salt into a fresh wound? If I told him what happened, it would really only prove his point and drive him even further away from me.

“I know you’re not Alex’s biggest fan, but you can’t let him bother you, Zac,” I said finally, my voice much weaker than I wanted it to be.

“I’m not. It’s not like I can stop other people from being attracted to you. I mean, _look_ at you,” he replied emphatically, his gaze boring right into me although I had a feeling that he’d rather be looking anywhere else. 

He leaned against the car door and sighed softly before continuing.

“What bothers me is that I think you want him, too.”

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I somehow managed to keep it together through our late afternoon performance, but just barely. By our last song, I was so tired I was actually shaking, but I was always so jittery onstage that the tremors probably just seemed like part of my typical routine. Although Zac and I had talked, we hadn’t really accomplished much of anything, and it was clear that he was still unsettled. Lately, when it was time to take our signature ‘group bow’ to wrap up the show, Zac held onto my hand until he absolutely _had_ to let go, sometimes even snaking an arm around my waist or letting his fingers graze across my ass when he was feeling particularly daring. But that day, he barely touched me at all before pulling his hand quickly back to his side. And the smile that he flashed at the audience and then at me was much too bright and fake, a ghost of the real thing. 

Once we’d finished packing up, the only thing I wanted to do was head back to our room and lose myself in the soft, cool sheets of the hotel bed, but just because the charity event was over didn’t mean that the evening was. Of course, there was an after party we were expected to attend. My only hope was that my brothers were feeling just as awful as I was and that we could make up some believable excuse to get out of it.

But when had I ever been that lucky?

Not only was Isaac visibly excited at the idea of meeting back up with the free-spirited group he’d gotten along with so well the night before, Zac also seemed genuinely interested in the post-show gathering. Although his enthusiasm very well could have had less to do with the party itself and more with not wanting to be stuck alone in a hotel room with me all night long.

The party was at a house in Glendale, which wasn’t all that far from where we were in West Hollywood but took ages to get to thanks to the back roads the GPS took us through to avoid the freeway traffic. Thankfully, Isaac volunteered to drive, giving me a chance to rest in the backseat as I watched the scenery pass by in a blur.

That was all my life felt like lately, anyway—a big fucking blur.

I thought that this trip to L.A. would take my mind off of things, would help distract me from the reality of eventually having to return home and renew wedding vows that I’d never truly wanted to take in the first place. But instead, I was being plagued with more demons from my past than I knew what to do with. And yet, I couldn’t play the part of the innocent victim because I’d brought it all upon myself. I heaved a sigh and watched my breath fog up the glass before wiping it away with my tired fingers. 

If only it were that simple—or possible—to erase my mistakes.


	9. Payback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Payback is a bitch, and the bitch is back.” – Stephen King._

I really wasn’t in the mood to drink, but what else was I supposed to do? The room I was standing in looked like the world’s biggest liquor cabinet had vomited all over it, and I was alone. Well, as alone as a person could be when surrounded by an overwhelming amount of other people. 

When we’d entered the party, Isaac had immediately parted ways with us to go find his group of hilariously well-dressed stoner friends. Once he was gone, Zac and I made our way to the bar at the back of the room without speaking. I ordered a vodka tonic and almost lost my footing when I heard Zac ask the bartender for a shot of Jameson. Ike was well-known for his love of hard liquor, but Zac, when he actually drank, stuck almost exclusively to beer these days. 

He ignored the incredulous look I threw at him across the rim of my cup and lifted the small glass to his lips, his eyes fixed on mine with a darkness that loomed over me like a stormcloud. But before he could actually take a drink, he stumbled forward and into me, the shot glass falling from his hands and spilling amber liquid all over both of us before it hit the floor. 

“Fuck, I’m so sorry!” A blonde twenty-something who looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine placed a hand on Zac’s shoulder and looked down between us to survey the damage. He was at least a head taller than Zac, his well-defined arm muscles rippling as he moved. “I should’ve been paying attention to where I was going.”

“It’s cool,” Zac said, bending down to retrieve the empty glass. My eyes widened when I saw the tall stranger’s gaze latch onto my brother’s ass.

“It _will_ be cool if you let me get you another,” he delivered smoothly, redirecting his eyes back to Zac’s face and flashing him a smile. He hadn’t so much as glanced at me, although technically he owed me a heartfelt apology as well. “What were you drinking?”

“Jameson,” Zac replied almost shyly, returning the grin.

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I muttered into my drink before tilting my head back and downing it all in a single gulp.

But Zac merely turned away from me and leaned against the bar, launching right into a friendly conversation with the asshole who’d bumped into him—whose name was Cole, apparently. Within moments, Cole was inching closer to my brother, his laughter infectious, his blue eyes bright and unblemished (unlike mine, which were marked by too many years of stress and unwanted signs of age). 

It was clear that I didn’t exist, as far as they were both concerned, and so I ordered another drink—a double, this time—and walked away. My plan of action was to hide away in a secluded corner and drink myself into a stupor, but it was quickly thwarted when I felt myself being pulled down onto a couch by a surprisingly strong pair of arms. I was suddenly face to face with Alex, his shit-eating grin letting me know that he’d already had more than a few drinks himself. Alcohol had had the same effect on him when we used to party together back in the day, adding a giddy sense of mischief to his typically calm and brooding presence. He grabbed the drink out of my hand and stuck his nose into the cup before raising his eyebrows and making a face of mild disgust.

“Weak,” he declared. “Here, try this.” 

Alex thrust his own drink into my hand with such enthusiasm that some of the liquid sloshed over the rim and onto my pants. But what did it matter? They were already covered in whiskey anyway.

“What is it?” I eyed the cup’s dark contents skeptically.

He shrugged. “I asked the bartender for the strongest shit he had, and this is what I ended up with. I don’t know what’s in it, but it gets the job done.” 

I raised it to my lips and took a tentative sip, feeling suddenly self-conscious under his probing stare. His eyes followed my every motion so unabashedly that if I hadn’t known better, I would’ve assumed that he wanted everyone else at the party to know just how much he enjoyed making me squirm. 

“Where’s your other half?” he asked.

“Natalie?”

He laughed and shook his head. “No. Zac.”

“He’s not my—,” 

“It was a joke, Taylor. Jesus. You really _have_ become a buzzkill,” he said. “I think it’s cute that he follows you around everywhere like a lost puppy.”

Given my growing level of intoxication, I didn’t trust myself to respond without sounding equal parts angry and obsessed with my brother, so I simply swallowed a large mouthful of Alex’s drink. It tasted awful, but he was right—it would definitely get the job done. The more I drank, the more relaxed I felt, and soon I could barely remember why I’d been in such a bad mood in the first place. 

But then my eyes darted toward the bar, where Zac and Cole were still very much engaged in what looked to be a teasing conversation, and I had to close my eyes to pretend it wasn’t happening. Yet despite the haze that settled over my surroundings, the image of my brother with another man was burned into my mind with sickening clarity. It was no secret that Zac became a flirt when he had too much to drink, but his drunken affection was usually directed toward women he had no interest in, not charming men who put my own looks to shame. I sighed and stared down into the plastic cup in my hand, only to find that it was empty.

“Don’t worry,” Alex said, patting my leg in mock consolation while he smirked at the disappointed pout that I was sporting. “There’s more where that came from.”

He reached into the pocket of his fitted black jacket and produced a flask, splitting its contents between my cup and his. I didn’t even bother asking what it was this time. I didn’t care. All I cared about was forgetting about Cole’s hand on the small of Zac’s back as he escorted him through the crowd and out of sight.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Unlike most parties that grew more and more wild and crowded as the hours ticked by, this one began thinning out shortly after midnight. It seemed that in this city, people were constantly on the move, flitting restlessly from one place to the next, but for the first time that day, I was perfectly content where I was. I ignored the fact that the room was spinning slightly and leaned back against the expensive leather couch, meeting Alex’s impish gaze.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked in a low voice.

“Sure.”

He removed the cup from my hand and set it down on the floor before leaning in so close to me that soft strands of his dark hair brushed against my cheek.

“Watching you watch me play earlier really turned me on,” he whispered.

I swallowed thickly, his words sending a ripple of desire all the way through me. 

“I think about you all the time, you know,” he continued huskily as he trailed his finger along the sensitive skin of my neck. “Do you ever think about me?”

I closed my eyes and nodded, because it was the truth. I tried to block him out, and sometimes I was successful, but I was never able to truly let go of him and what his presence in my life all those years ago meant to me. It seemed that no matter how much time or physical distance was placed between us, he would always haunt me—even when I was hopelessly in love with someone else.

At the thought of Zac, my eyes snapped open and an overpowering wave of nausea hit me. 

“I’m… I’ll be right back,” I stammered, breaking away from Alex and standing from the couch. 

My legs felt like lead and were no longer steady enough to support my weight, but I stumbled toward the bathroom nonetheless, not even caring that I knocked into several party guests during my reckless journey. Once I’d locked myself inside, I sank down to my knees and heaved several times over the toilet, but nothing came up except for a few strangled sobs. My body was begging to be purged of all of the toxic things eating away at me, but I was allowed absolutely no relief. I guess this was payback at its finest.

A harsh, insistent banging at the door pulled me out of my pity party for one, and I rose slowly from the tile and splashed some water on my face. No wonder Zac had chosen a gorgeous stranger over me. I looked like _hell_. As I left the bathroom, my pale, lifeless reflection followed me like a curse that had been cast upon me. 

I forged a haphazard path through the dark hallway and eventually had to stop and lean against the wall for support, the ground beneath me feeling more like rocky ocean waves than sturdy wooden flooring. It was then I noticed, through slightly blurry vision, a sliver of light spilling out from the room across the hall, illuminating Zac’s profile. He was alone and seated at the edge of a twin-sized bed, his head bowed toward the carpet. I sat down beside him with a sigh, causing him to glance up with eyes that looked just as heavy and remorseful as I felt.

“He kissed me,” he muttered.

“Well, Alex kissed me,” I confessed, laughing miserably. “So I guess that makes us even.”

We both knew that wasn’t even close to the truth—that Alex kissing me was very different than Zac being kissed by a stranger he’d just met and would never see again. But instead of voicing that thought, he pursed his lips together, his dark eyes giving way to a sad resignation, like he’d known about the kiss all along.

“Does he make you feel the same way that I do?” he finally asked, bringing his hand to rest against my thigh.

“You already know my answer,” I said quietly, my heart rate picking up as the warmth of his fingers burned through the fabric of my jeans.

“But I want to hear you say it,” he insisted, scooting closer to me so that our sides were touching. I smelled strong whiskey on his breath and tried not to think about the fact that his lips had just been on someone else’s.

“You’re the only one who makes me feel like _this_ ,” I replied truthfully, grabbing his hand and placing it against my heart.

His lips found mine as he pushed me gently against the bed. The world around me was still spinning and I couldn’t fight it anymore so I let myself get carried away by the surges of pleasure caused by his every touch. I knew that I should stop him, but the moment his mouth moved to the hollow of my neck, all words of resistance escaped me. 

“Fuck, I want you so badly,” he murmured, rocking his hips against mine as if to prove his point. 

I moaned softly at the contact and he grinned devilishly, repeating the deliberate motion. He wrapped his arm around my waist and lowered himself onto me, letting me feel just how hard he was and how badly we both needed this.

When a loud gasp sounded at the doorway, we didn’t have time to pull away from each other. We didn’t have time to make what we were doing look like anything other than exactly what it was. I was pinned beneath my brother, my breathing shallow and erratic, long pieces of his hair still in my face. I had a feeling that even if we hadn’t been locked in a heated embrace, our frozen expressions of guilt and horror would’ve given it all away. I closed my eyes and said a quick and pointless prayer before opening them to meet my fate.

“Oh my God,” Alex breathed, the color draining swiftly from his face.


	10. Twisted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Just a single cord is enough to be tangled.” – Munia Khan._

Alex stood motionless in the doorway, looking so drunk and confused that I probably would have laughed had the situation been even a little bit humorous. There was nothing funny about being caught locking lips with your brother, though, so I merely sucked in a deep breath and sat up. 

“Is this really happening?” he asked.

“Not anymore,” Zac muttered, staring daggers in his direction. Alex backed up a few paces and rocked on his heels, looking like he was about to leave, but Zac shook his head before quietly commanding, “Get over here. And close the damn door behind you.”

“Zac…” I started, my nerves on edge as Alex dazedly followed Zac’s instructions. He shut the door and even went so far as to secure the lock in place before coming to stand before us, his dark eyes searching mine. 

Zac shook his head again forcefully. “I know you trust him, but I sure as hell don’t. Especially not with something like this.”

“So what’s your plan, exactly?” I asked, my voice laced with sarcasm. “Should we keep him locked up in this room with us forever?”

I knew I shouldn’t have taken my frustration out on Zac, but I couldn’t help it. I was so pissed off and scared. The fear of someone finding out about us lurked just beneath the surface constantly, but the longer we got away with it, the more careless we became. As a result, we’d each made our fair share of mistakes over the last several months, but this was by far the stupidest, most reckless thing we’d ever done. 

“Look, I’m more than willing to blame it on the alcohol,” Alex spoke up, lifting his hands in the air as if to make an offering of peace. He appeared entirely calm and confident as telltale signs of a smirk hung from the corners of his lips. Either the bewilderment he’d displayed moments ago had been an act or he’d recovered from the shock very quickly. “Just two drunk, horny dudes messing around… who just happen to come from the same gene pool.”

Zac scowled and mumbled something under his breath.

“What was that?” Alex asked.

“I said that we’re not just messing around.”

“Zac, don’t,” I cut in, a harsh warning in my tone as I realized what he was about to do. 

“Don’t what? Don’t let him know that it’s more than just a drunken slip-up? Don’t tell him that I love you, that I can’t get enough of the way your tight ass feels around my cock?” He laughed then, the low sound echoing off of the walls and threatening to pierce right through me. “He already saw us, Taylor. What’s the point in hiding anymore?”

I sighed and buried my face in my hands, wanting nothing more than to escape to somewhere far, far away from the two people I was currently trapped in someone else’s bedroom with. Zac didn’t trust Alex, yet he had no problem exposing our darkest secret to him? It made no fucking sense at all. But then again, he was still clearly drunk—we all were—so searching for any shred of clarity amidst the chaos was a pointless endeavor. 

“I get what you’re trying to do. You want to freak me out and scare me away,” Alex said, stepping closer to Zac without letting go of his fiery gaze. “But as I was telling Taylor earlier, I happen to _love_ fucked up stories. And boy, does this one take the cake.”

Zac seemed to shrink beneath the weight of his heavy stare. It was just like Zac to use a tough, uncaring exterior to mask the fact that he was really feeling vulnerable and terrified. And it was just like Alex to sift through the bullshit and call it exactly like it was. 

“I liked watching you two together. It was pretty fucking hot,” he continued, raising his eyebrows suggestively. “In fact, I think I’d like to see it again.”

“What?” We voiced the word in unison, my head snapping up in horror.

“I’ll keep my mouth shut about what I just walked in on as long as you give me a free show.”

“You’re a sick bastard,” Zac spat.

“I’m no more twisted than the guy who likes to fuck his older brother, am I?”

It appeared that Zac had no argument for that, and so he grudgingly closed his mouth, his fingers curling into tight fists by his sides. I held my breath as I watched his chest rise and fall in barely-contained fury, almost certain that he was about to throw a punch. I really hoped he didn’t, though. We had enough insane drama on our hands without the addition of a fight.

“C’mon, lighten up. There’s no point in hiding anymore—you said so yourself.” Alex shrugged off Zac’s apparent rage, his voice dropping to a husky whisper as his hand crept up my brother’s jean-clad thigh toward the erection that hadn’t yet had a chance to fade. “And I know you’re still turned on.”

Zac closed his eyes, evidently at war between the way he felt about Alex and the way Alex was making him feel. I understood that battle all too well. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so uncomfortable or so disturbingly aroused. When he opened them, I expected to see a mixture of confused emotions swimming in their depths, but instead I was shocked to find him delivering Alex a look of total resignation.

“Okay,” he replied simply.

“You’re not serious,” I blurted out, my eyes wide.

“I’m completely serious.” His attention was centered on Alex now as he watched him carefully, directing his words to me. “I’ll do what he wants… as long as he goes down on me.”

Oh, this was a dangerous game, and Zac had no idea how to play it. Zac’s intention was to give him a taste of his own medicine, but what he didn’t realize was that Alex Greenwald didn’t back down from challenges, no matter how perverted or absurd they were. Surrender wasn’t a part of his vocabulary, and I could tell by the way his eyes flashed decisively that he’d already made up his mind. With a smug grin, he quickly closed the space between them and sank down to his knees. Zac’s jeans were in a heap around his ankles within seconds, his erection straining against a pair of my black boxers that he claimed were much more comfortable than his own. He gazed down through hooded eyelids, his features stuck somewhere between lust and disbelief as Alex stroked him roughly through the fabric. 

“Fuck,” he moaned as Alex slid the boxers over his hips and licked his cock in one smooth motion. I’d watched Alex consume his body weight in alcohol that night, but he didn’t seem the slightest bit impaired as he drew his tongue along Zac’s length. I was impressed but not at all surprised by his expertise in that department. I assumed that he’d had many years of practice and experience, and that he’d been waiting a long time to show off certain skills to me.

When Alex lifted his head and locked eyes with me briefly, I couldn’t look away. This was just another bad habit he’d introduced me to that I was too weak to deny. I couldn’t have possibly ignored what was happening even if I’d wanted to; the forbidden thrill of it had already sucked me in. I anticipated being overwhelmed by a keen sense of jealousy similar to what I’d felt while watching Cole flirt with Zac at the bar, but instead I was met with nothing but intense, unparalleled desire. 

Annoyed that he’d lost focus, Zac tangled his hand in Alex’s hair and shoved him down into his lap again, letting out a mumbled string of curses. Alex grabbed my brother’s thighs and swallowed every inch that he was given, his compliance only making Zac thrust against him harder. He was known to get rough with me after having a few drinks (a side of him that I shamelessly enjoyed), but he was practically punishing Alex, his fingernails grinding ruthless half-moons into his slender neck. But Alex didn’t complain; if anything, the more forceful Zac was with him, the more excited he became. 

I knew that Zac was close when he let go of Alex and moved his hands to the bedspread, clawing desperately at the patterned quilt beneath him. When he was at the very edge, his entire body shaking, Alex stopped abruptly and lifted himself from the floor. Without so much as another glance in Zac’s direction, he leaned in and kissed me deeply. I tasted traces of Zac on his tongue and grew almost dizzy with need.

“I want to watch him fuck you,” Alex whispered in my ear, finding my scarf and unwinding it with his long fingers. He then wrapped it loosely around his own neck and lowered himself onto the bed beside me.

Soon Zac was shirtless and his hands were on me, tugging at my V-neck and jeans with clumsy impatience. Once he realized that the garments weren’t capable of magically disappearing, he frowned and stepped back, letting me take over. I couldn’t quite believe what I was doing as I undressed myself, extremely aware that there were now _two_ pairs of eyes glued to my every move. I caught my reflection in the wall-length mirror and could see them both watching me. My gaze dropped down to my wedding band, which ironically enough, I’d remembered to wear that day. Whether I liked it or not, that ring and everything it stood for were such inextricable parts of me. I shook my head sadly, causing a thick strand of hair to fall across my face. If there was a God, and if he had any sense at all, then he was damning me to hell right now (if he hadn’t done so already). 

“I’ll let you call the shots, okay?” Zac said, brushing the intrusive lock of hair away from the corner of my eye. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in, kissing me with open eyes. “I won’t do anything that you don’t want to do. I promise.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Our lips met in another heated kiss, his cock pulsing against my thigh and reminding me that we were already past the point of no return. Placing one last kiss against my shoulder, he turned me around so that I was facing Alex and positioned himself behind me, when suddenly there was a violent banging at the door. My heart jumped into my throat, Zac’s body tensed, and Alex (for the first time that night) looked visibly unhinged. 

“Hey fuckers, open up! This room’s off limits!” A man called loudly through the wall, pounding his fist against the hollow wood a few more times for added effect.

_Shit._

I should have been used to these interruptions by now, but they always managed to catch me off guard, each new occurrence landing me in an even more compromising position than the last. The next several moments passed by in a frantic blur and when Alex eventually opened the door and greeted the belligerent stranger with a calmness I was sure he didn’t feel, I pulled a Zac and bolted from the room. 

I stumbled blindly through the house until I finally found an exit and pushed my way outside, greedily inhaling the smoky midnight air. Laughter sounded in the distance like a long-forgotten song and I found myself aching to be young again, to send myself back in time before any of this started. I truly didn’t remember what it was like to be so happy and carefree. 

I stared up at the sky just in time to watch the moon slide behind a thick blanket of clouds, stealing the light away. I didn’t blame it. I would’ve hidden from me too, if only I knew how.


	11. Maker's Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I forgave everybody, I gave up, I got drunk.” – Jack Kerouac._

By the time I found my brothers, Isaac was a babbling, incoherent mess and Zac was half-unconscious on the couch beside him. Ike wasn’t happy about my suggestion to let go of the bottle of rum in his hand and call it a night, and Zac stubbornly resisted my attempts to rouse him, but I eventually managed to pull them both away from the party and all further temptations. After fishing the keys out of a stumbling Isaac’s pocket (if he was too far gone to walk correctly, then there was no way in hell he was driving), I led the way down the street to where the car was parked. I was sure there was still alcohol in my system, but I felt much more sober than I had all evening. And if I got pulled over for a DUI… well, that would just be one more item to tack onto the list of stupid, fucked up things I’d done that night. 

Thankfully, I got us back to the hotel in one piece, although the journey upstairs was another challenge in itself that required practically dragging my little brother's sluggish body through the halls. When we finally reached our room, Zac kicked off his shoes but didn’t bother removing any of his clothes before falling across the bed in a glamorless heap. He was asleep within seconds, his loud, measured breaths the only interruptions in my otherwise ceaseless flow of thoughts. Once again, I marveled at his unfailing ability to fall asleep regardless of the place or circumstance. There was so much on my mind that I predicted not being able to sleep at all that night—or for many nights to follow, for that matter.

Eventually, though, sheer exhaustion must have kicked in and knocked me out for at least a few short hours because when I opened my eyes, it was morning. I rolled onto my side, fully expecting to find Zac in the exact same position he’d passed out in the moment his head hit the pillow, but I was met instead with an empty expanse of blankets and starch white sheets.

I sat up quickly and instantly regretted the abrupt movement as a wave of nausea swept over me. As I leaned back against the headboard and closed my eyes, a parade of vivid memories flashed through my mind that only served to intensify the sick feeling in my gut. I rarely drank enough to get drunk anymore, but when I did, I typically recalled only hazy bits and pieces of my alcohol-induced antics the morning after. But as my luck would have it, I remembered every single thing about the night before with startling clarity. 

It felt surreal, to be quite honest. I was certainly no stranger to risky and reckless behavior, but a threesome involving two other guys (one being my own _brother_ , no less) was a whole new brand of crazy. In fact, if anyone ever told me that I would get dangerously close to letting Zac fuck me in the presence of Alex Greenwald, I would’ve laughed at the poor, clueless soul and argued that there was a better chance of me suddenly sprouting a tail and becoming a mermaid. Or wait… I’d be a merman, wouldn’t I? At any rate, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. And yet, it had almost happened—and it probably would have happened had we not been interrupted.

The shuffling of feet against the carpet pulled me from my thoughts, and I opened my eyes to find Zac staring at me. He was fresh out of the shower and looked so damn good in his jeans and tight black t-shirt that I wanted to tear them off of him and bring him back to bed, where I would then proceed to worship every inch of his delicious skin. But apparently, Zac wasn’t in the mood for morning sex—he didn’t even lean in to kiss me. After studying me for several long moments with an unreadable look on his face, he slipped his shoes on and headed for the door. 

I glanced at the digital clock by the bed and noticed it was 11:15, meaning that the hotel had just stopped serving breakfast. Maybe he was planning on getting food for us to prevent me from ever having to leave the comfort of this bed. The thought made me smile, quieting some of my distress and anxiety about the prior night’s events. 

“Bring me back a coffee?” I asked hopefully.

“I can’t,” he replied after a moment’s pause, his hand around the door handle. He didn’t turn to face me. “I’m going out with Ike.”

The smile fell from my lips as soon as the surprising words left his. “What?”

“He’s going on a brewery tour with some of the guys he met the other night. He invited me along, and I said yes.”

“Oh… okay, then.” 

I couldn’t remember the last time he’d willingly accompanied Isaac on one of his touristy adventures. Truth be told, Zac was always so adamant about not following our older brother on his various excursions that _I_ was usually the one who got roped into going with him. I analyzed his voice and his demeanor for a sign that it was all just a joke, but he seemed entirely serious. And then he pulled the door open, making it clear that he had no intention of offering me an invitation to go with them.

“Have fun,” I said softly, clearing my throat to mask my failed attempt at nonchalance. 

“Thanks.” The word smacked into me with just as much force as the door that swung closed behind him.

I lifted my eyes to the ceiling and sighed as a veil of angry, confused tears clouded my vision. Here I was, twenty-fucking-nine years old, a grown man with a family, and I was about to have a nervous breakdown over the fact that my little brother had chosen to hang out with a group of other people instead of spending the day alone with me. 

If I wasn’t the definition of pathetic, then I didn’t know what was.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

As I made my way to the hotel bar, I thought there would be at least one or two other people with the same idea. But apparently, noon was too early for even the resident alcoholics to start drinking, because aside from the lone bartender, the bar was completely vacant. Yet that didn’t stop me from hoisting myself onto a stool in the room’s secluded corner and ordering a shot of Maker’s Mark. The bartender raised his eyebrows at me slightly before reclaiming his previous look of apathy, but I didn’t even blink behind my aviators. Yes, I was wearing sunglasses inside. My tired, bloodshot eyes were a sorry sight and I didn’t want to subject anyone else to the horror of staring directly into them.

I knocked back the shot quickly, praying that my pain and humiliation would follow suit, but they did no such thing. If anything, the alcohol made the flashbacks even more intense and lasting. I mumbled something about needing another drink (or five) before pulling out my phone and staring down at the screen. But who was I going to call? My little brother who had all but abandoned me before we’d even had a chance to talk about what happened? My wife who already felt abandoned _by_ me? A feeling of almost paralyzing loneliness ripped through me when I realized that there wasn’t a single person I could talk to about this.

The bartender set my refill down in front of me and leaned against the bar, striking up an idle conversation. I normally avoided small talk like it was the plague, but on that particular day I welcomed it. I needed to fill my head with details of someone else’s life, needed to distance myself from the disturbing thoughts about my own. I was only half-listening, but I managed to nod and appear at least partially interested in what he was saying as he took me through the journey of every job he’d ever had.

“So, what brings you to L.A.?” he inquired once he’d finally taken a break from telling me his life’s story, pulling my empty glass toward him and pouring another heaping amount of reddish-brown liquid into it.

“Work,” I replied, grateful that he didn’t seem to recognize me. “It was supposed to be for pleasure too, but… well, the trip hasn’t been very pleasant so far.” I laughed then, the sarcastic sound echoing through the empty room as I swilled the drink around in the glass. “I guess that’s pretty obvious though, huh? I mean, if I were having the time of my life then I wouldn’t be here all alone before lunchtime, destination: wasted.”

“At least you’re not alone anymore?” he offered, staring behind me distractedly. 

Puzzled by his statement, I turned around to find Alex strolling into the bar as if he owned it. He slid onto the stool beside me and threw his keys and phone onto the counter, then flashed a smile at the bartender and said, “I’ll have whatever he’s having.” 

His presence was more of a direct hit than all of the alcohol I was consuming on an empty stomach, unsettling me so much that I had to put my drink down because my hands were shaking. 

“I pulled a few stalker strings to find out where you’re staying,” Alex said, effectively answering the question that never made it past my tongue. “I hope you don’t mind.” 

Once he had his own drink in hand, he touched his glass to mine before finishing it all in one gulp. I could do nothing but watch him, hypnotized by the way his throat moved as he swallowed, the motion reminding me of something else I’d seen him do the night before. My whole body burned at the memory, causing me to shift in my seat uncomfortably. Alex apparently saw right through the shaded shield across my eyes, running his tongue across his lips in a slow, deliberate manner as he leaned in close to me. 

“How’re you feeling?” he asked, his fingers dancing teasingly across my thigh.

“Never been better.”

His lips curled into a cryptic grin as he signaled for another drink. The bartender returned with more bourbon for me, too, although I hadn’t asked for it. Once again, Alex clinked his glass against my own in an unceremonious fashion before lifting it to his lips.

“What exactly are we drinking to?”

“To Taylor Hanson—the endless fucking mystery.” And with that, he tilted his head back and downed his second drink with ease.

“Thanks to what nearly happened last night, I think it’s safe to say you know me better than most people ever will,” I muttered darkly.

“Speaking of last night…” Alex’s breath was warm against my cheek, his fingers even warmer as they inched closer and closer to the erection I’d stopped trying to control. “…I think it’s a damn shame we were interrupted.”

I exhaled a trembling sigh and raked a hand through my messy hair, both hating and loving the power that he had over me. When I was in his presence, I was constantly torn between urges, wanting to slap him and kiss him senseless all at once. Like Zac, he was one of the most frustratingly stubborn people I’d ever known, and he made me feel so _alive_. 

“Last night was a mistake,” I said quietly.

“No.” He shook his head decisively. “Cutting your hair off all those years ago—now, _that_ was a mistake. Doing a line of coke with Sam before the show yesterday? Probably also a mistake. But I don’t regret a single second of what happened in that bedroom.”

I didn’t know what shocked me more: the fact that he was still using or that he was so absolutely fascinated by my relationship with Zac. His words stunned me speechless, and I was only able to find my voice again when the bartender approached and asked us if we’d like another round.

“No, thanks,” I replied, slapping enough money onto the bar to cover both of our tabs and then some. 

“Aw, Tay. You shouldn’t have,” Alex said, squeezing my leg and batting his eyelashes in an overly flirtatious display.

“You need to not talk about or do this shit in public,” I hissed once the bartender had collected his generous tip and wandered out of earshot.

“Well, shall we take the conversation elsewhere? Your hotel room, perhaps?” he asked, a familiar twinkle in his eye. 

Nothing good would come of this—I was sure of it—but that knowledge didn’t stop me from nodding and leading him out of the bar and toward the elevator. Everything had already fallen to shit anyway, and I didn’t see how it could possibly get much worse.


	12. Method Acting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I have sat too long in my silence / I have grown too old in my pain / To shed this skin, be born again / It starts with an ending.” – Bright Eyes._

“Well, isn’t this fancy?” Alex smirked, although the look on his face revealed that he really was impressed with the size of our hotel room.

I pulled the door closed behind me and rocked on my heels by the king-sized bed as Alex took an unguided tour of the room. While I was at the bar, the housekeeping staff had obviously stopped by and managed to return things to an orderly state, reversing Zac’s aim to keep the room as messy as possible. Although his wife was a neat freak whose likes I’d never seen, if it were up to Zac, he’d live in a constant state of disarray. His touring habits over the years had made that fact abundantly clear. His clothes and personal belongings were always strewn about the tour bus or hotel room, leaving either Isaac or myself to pick up after him (as we shared a similar intolerance for clutter). 

Yet instead of driving us apart, our differences somehow brought us even closer. Maybe it was a mark of sheer resignation on my part (because after growing up with Zac, I knew that when it came to certain things, he’d never change) but I found his flaws more endearing than frustrating. And at that moment, I would have given anything to watch him tear into a bag of Cheetos and smile carelessly as the thick, orange powder clung to his fingers and full lips. 

While Alex nudged the thick curtains open just a fraction to take in the view of the city streets below, I collapsed onto the bed with a sigh. All of those bourbon shots were catching up with me more quickly than I’d expected, and I was suddenly ready for a nap. It was unlikely that I’d actually be able to sleep, but I’d settle for burying myself beneath the sheets for a few hours of much-needed rest.

Alex eventually lost interest in the room’s amenities, kicked off his shoes, and joined me on the bed, his long legs stretching out just a few inches past my own. He shifted closer to me until our hips touched, the contact making me jump in surprise.

“It feels just like old times, doesn’t it?” he mused, leaning back on one elbow so he could look at me.

I nodded distractedly although I didn’t exactly agree. So much had changed in the last ten years—at least, it had for me—that it was impossible to revert back to the person I’d been before my wedding. Once Natalie slipped that cold ring onto my finger, my life had twisted itself into a funnel cloud that crashed through every familiar comfort I’d ever known. The day that we got married was picture-perfect from the outside; everything was in its right place as the Georgia sky smiled down upon us. My own smile wasn’t real, though, which was why I had yet to go back and pore over any of our wedding photos. I knew I’d see right through the glossy surface to the frozen statue I’d been that day and for many months to follow. 

The birth of my son was what cracked the weathered stone around my heart and made me feel again. It wasn’t that I wanted to be a father, but I knew that I _had_ to be, and I’ve always been good at playing the various roles expected of me. The moment I lifted Ezra out of Natalie’s arms and stared into his wide and shining eyes was when I finally stopped dragging my heels and steeling myself against my life and began to live it. I’d always been a dreamer with a tendency to believe in the impossible, but even I knew there was no way to magically erase the past. So I came to accept that I had a family who was attached to me whether I liked it or not. And I chose to love them despite the guilty remorse that forced its way in a little more deeply with each passing day.

I soon discovered that I was a better actor than I ever thought possible. I’d never had to pretend before—up until then, I’d actually been pretty damn happy. Zac was the only one who noticed that the fire inside of me had burned out and been replaced by an artificial flame, something that looked enough like the real thing to fool most people because most people didn’t care about the truth; they only saw what they wanted to see. 

He didn’t say anything to me that revealed his thoughts on the situation, but he didn’t have to. The message was clear when he would stop by my house for an unexpected visit, greet my wife and kids, and then whisk me away for a few blissful hours. Sometimes we went to the local diner for greasy double cheeseburgers and huge, sinful slices of coconut cream pie. Sometimes we holed ourselves up in the studio and just had fun, making up ridiculous, spur-of-the-moment songs that would never see the light of day or be heard by anyone but us. And sometimes we did nothing but drive, the scenery familiar but the feelings inside explosive, delightful, and ever-changing. I’d been lusting after Zac for years at that point, but he never let me believe we could be anything but brothers. Yet he always seemed to know exactly what I needed.

I sucked in a sharp breath when I felt a puff of warm air hit my skin. The room was spinning and my head felt heavy yet strangely detached from my body, a feeling that had less to do with alcohol and much more to do with my bittersweet memories. I closed my eyes and breathed in again, and when I opened them, it was Alex’s dark eyes that grounded me. 

“Where’ve you been?” he asked softly, sounding like he already knew the answer.

I shook my head. “I guess I just spaced out for a minute… sorry.”

“It’s okay. I always liked that about you,” he replied with an almost pensive grin. “You live with one foot stuck in the cold, hard world and the other one somewhere in the clouds.”

I didn’t want to agree with him, but I couldn’t argue with him either, considering he was exactly right. So I simply drew my lips together and focused on the ceiling, waiting for my thoughts to settle.

“I always knew you had a kinky side, too. You just didn’t want anyone to see it,” he murmured, running a finger gently down my neck. 

I shivered despite myself, struggling to keep my gaze on the ceiling fan above my head.

“But even I didn’t realize you were kinky enough to fuck your little brother.” 

His hand wandered between my legs and my eyes fell closed as I swallowed a moan instead of releasing it.

“In fact, I didn’t realize you were really all that into guys. I mean, I thought you _could_ be—everyone thought you could be—but you were so fucking unstable when I met you and it made sense that you wanted to experiment. Even though kissing was as far as we ever went…”

Following his own cue, he leaned in and nipped at the side of my neck, causing me to arch my back and thrust against his hand helplessly. 

“I always wanted more, though,” Alex admitted, hitching his thumb a bit higher so that it grazed the button on my jeans.

When he rolled on top of me and captured my bottom lip between his teeth, I let out a strangled cry, the sound an echo of all of my pain and arousal. He grabbed at my hair and groaned into my mouth as our tongues twirled together. We were locked in a heated power struggle that had been such a long time coming that neither of us knew quite what to do. I finally broke the kiss, my chest heaving as I stared into his eyes. His body was so strong and unyielding but he looked shockingly vulnerable, and I realized that what we were doing was much more than just a game spurred on by lust and alcohol. 

Honestly? I’d wanted more, too. I wanted to kiss my way down his smooth, shirtless chest and find out what was beneath his skintight jeans. I wished he would let go and have his way with me, needing someone else to control me because I kept driving off-course in all sorts of wrong and irreversible directions. But we never crossed those lines, and our restraint cemented a barrier between us that lasted for ten long years. 

Alex recovered quickly and ran his soft lips against my jaw, trailing a teasing pattern all the way up to my ear.

“I want to watch you touch yourself,” he breathed, each syllable sending a new wave of desire into my bloodstream.

Without giving me a chance to respond, he reached down and unfastened my jeans before sitting up and staring at me. The rest was up to me, and I probably should have stopped it there before it started. But who was I kidding? It had started years ago, and the hot blood rushing through my veins wasn’t just a result of _this_ moment, but of all of the times I wished we’d taken things just a little bit further.

So I helped him lift my shirt over my head and toss it to the floor, and I felt the wall between us break into pieces. I pushed my jeans down over my hips, knowing that I wore nothing beneath them, and Alex moaned at the sight of my erection springing into view between us. My entire body was shaking, but that didn’t stop me from tracing a deliberate pattern along the length of my cock. If there was one thing I knew how to do, it was to put on a show.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, his eyes clouding over as I let a string of saliva fall from my lips and coat the swollen head of my cock. 

I swiped my thumb roughly across my skin, every familiar motion striking a new, heightened chord of sensation at the thought of Alex watching me. I paused as our eyes met in a particularly intense stare. This was so unbelievably wrong. We hadn’t even properly recovered from the night before and here we were, making another reckless and intentional mistake. 

“Keep going,” he urged.

My cock twitched at his raspy words and I made a fist around myself, pumping slowly. I worked myself into a painfully hard state before releasing my grip and directing my hand lower and lower until it found another aching part of me. I slipped a slick finger inside and my jaw fell slack, my heart pounding out a thick, hammering rhythm against my ribcage. 

I was so caught up in what I was doing to myself that I didn’t see Alex approaching until his lips were on me. He dragged his tongue along my shaft and I pushed my finger in even more deeply. He took all of me just like he’d done to Zac the night before, making it look so easy. I groaned a husky noise of appreciation as he moved his lips up and down like it was his life’s mission to suck the release right out of me. 

“Oh, fuck yeah… I’m so close.”

“Come in my mouth,” he begged. “I want to taste you.” 

His eyes were cut open by slivers of light pouring in from the window and for a brief moment, they looked almost blue like mine. Then, he licked his lips and angled his head back down to my lap.

I bucked my hips against him and called out his name as I came. I was probably loud enough to disturb the occupants of the surrounding rooms, but I didn’t care. The only thing on my mind was the way Alex swallowed what he could with a smile and used his skilled tongue to catch the stray drops of semen that had splashed against my stomach. 

We were both still lost in our own world when the door swung open, a loud gasp ringing through the air like a gunshot.


	13. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head.” – Sara Gruen._

Zac’s eyes darkened as he stood in the doorway, watching us. I wasn’t sure when he’d entered, but the look on his face told me that he’d seen more than enough. I tried to speak but my voice was lost somewhere between my frantic heartbeats and the overwhelming sense of guilt that had settled in my gut.

“The brewery tour was a bust, so Ike asked the guys back to his hotel room to drink and watch movies. I didn’t realize you had company…” he mumbled.

“I could definitely go for another drink right now,” Alex chimed in nonchalantly.

I glared at him but he merely smiled back at me, the twinkle in his eyes letting me know that he wasn’t even remotely sorry about what had just happened between us. I was sorry, though, and I hung my head in shame, pulling the covers around my naked body.

“No one said _you_ were invited,” Zac said, his tone thin and angry. 

“Oh, Isaac won’t mind. Dude’s always liked me,” he replied with a confident smile. 

“Yeah, I’m sure he would just _love_ to hear all about how you were deep-throating Taylor’s cock,” Zac remarked, rolling his eyes.

“Like you haven’t done the same?” Alex shot back, looking barely fazed. “I can only imagine what your dear older brother would have to say about _that_.”

Zac’s eyes narrowed and caught mine once again, causing me to shiver. Despite all of their issues, maybe he’d actually learned a few things from his wife over the years (after all, Kate was the queen of icy stares). But the longer we both held the gaze, the more I was able to see beneath the surface of his rage. He was hurt, disappointed, and afraid. And I was nothing but a foolish, selfish bastard for letting myself get so carried away with Alex.

I closed my eyes and fell back against the sheets, knowing there was nothing any of us could say to fix the situation and desperately hoping that they’d both stop talking. But of course, that didn’t happen. 

“Fuck you, Alex,” Zac muttered.

“You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?”

A tense silence followed, punctuated by the door slamming so forcefully that it shook the whole room. When I opened my eyes, Zac was gone, Alex grinning like he’d just claimed a certain victory. 

“Do you really find this amusing?” I asked.

“A little bit,” he said with a shrug.

I frowned and let my eyes drift across the space that Zac had just vacated.

“Oh c’mon, Tay. Lighten up. We were having so much fun just a few minutes ago…” His smile was playful as he inched closer to me, his fingers trying to creep beneath the sheets to touch me again, but I reached out my hand to stop him.

“I think you should go,” I said quietly.

“Are you serious?”

I nodded.

“Taylor, I—,”

“Look, I’m just exhausted,” I cut him off before he could say anything more. “I’ve done a lot of fucked up things recently and haven’t had any time to recover from them. I think I just need to be alone for a little while to process everything… to try to get my head on straight again.”

“Okay,” he finally conceded, the impish sparkle in his eyes fading as he studied me. “But can you promise me something?”

I raised my eyebrows warily.

“Please don’t shut me out like I did to you ten years ago,” he said in a surprisingly sober tone. “Letting you go was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

And with that, he kissed me gently on the lips and left the room.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I entertained the idea of joining my brothers and their new friends downstairs, but the thought of consuming any more alcohol turned my stomach, as did the idea of facing Zac in the presence of other people. I had no clue how he would react to me. He’d been such a mystery lately—irresistibly hot one instant, unbearably cold the next—and I was getting so tired of trying to figure him out. If only he would’ve just _talked_ to me instead of running away and hiding inside of his various moods. But maybe he only ran because he knew I would always chase after him.

My phone rang loudly and I scrambled to retrieve it from the nightstand, frowning when my wife’s name lit up the small screen. I didn’t think I could even pretend to sound normal given how messed up I was feeling, so I let it ring and got lost in the mindless whirring of the ceiling fan that spun above my head. 

A few minutes later, it rang again. I shut my eyes tightly and ignored it, Alex’s wistful words and Zac’s angry ones tangling together in my mind. I prayed for apathy although I knew that was something I’d never been and could never be. I had a nagging conscience that didn’t know how to leave me alone but oh, how I wished sometimes that I could just _stop feeling_.

I must have drifted off to sleep, because the next thing I knew, I was being dragged out of hazy half-consciousness by the insistent buzzing of my cell phone alerting me to a new text message. I finally grabbed the irritating device and glanced down at it with bleary eyes, watching a fuzzy picture come to life. 

The photo that took shape on the screen made me cry out and bite down on my tongue until I tasted blood. It was, without a doubt, an ultrasound image. I’d seen enough of them in my life to know exactly what it was, but I blinked and pinched the corners of my eyes several times to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I scrolled down and saw a short message from Natalie beneath the picture, which only served to confirm my fears: 

**“I’m five weeks pregnant. Congratulations, daddy!”**

Shouldn’t I have felt overjoyed? Wouldn’t most people have considered this a blessing? So why were tears of utter misery stabbing at my eyes?

As ridiculous as it was that she’d shared the news with me via a text message of all things, I was relieved that I didn’t have to talk to her at that very moment. I wouldn’t have been able to stop the shaking tremor in my voice that surely would’ve belied my forced facade of happiness. Children had been a running theme in our marriage ever since the beginning; she probably expected me to be just as thrilled and hopeful as she was. But God, I was so tired of never, ever being allowed to catch a single fucking break.

I didn’t remember running to the bathroom, but I vividly recalled purging my body of everything inside of it—the alcohol, my tears, the knotted mass of guilt and shame that sat beside my heart. When I had nothing left to give, I slumped to the floor and leaned against the cool marble of the bathtub, lifting my eyes to the harsh lights that hung above my head. I wanted them to blind me, to burn the image from my memory. I wasn’t ready for another stressful pregnancy, another birth, another mouth to feed and a future to shape. Hell, there were days when I was barely able to take care of _myself_. 

My silent pity party was interrupted when the bathroom door swung open, revealing my brother’s swaying frame in the doorway. Zac sauntered over to the toilet, flipped up the lid, and took a piss without meeting my gaze. Once he was done, he washed his hands and moved to leave the room, but the sound of my voice stopped him. 

“I’m sorry about what happened with Alex.”

He turned to face me, his eyes dark and expressionless.

“I should’ve known that you can’t keep it in your pants,” he replied vacantly. “I mean, you have four kids, Taylor—I think they’re living proof of that.”

“Five,” I mumbled, my eyes dropping to the floor.

“What?”

“It looks like your wife isn’t the only one who’s pregnant.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” I laughed sadly, holding my iPhone out to him. 

“Damn.” He sat down on the floor beside me and studied the picture intently, long strands of hair falling into his eyes and catching on his bottom lip in the process.

“Well, I can’t say I’m all that shocked,” he spoke up after several long moments. “I mean, it was always on our wives’ agendas to be pregnant at the same time, wasn’t it? I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, honestly.”

I shook my head, letting out a heavy sigh. “I just can’t believe this. I can’t believe where I am right now.”

Zac set the phone down and narrowed his eyes in confusion. “On the floor of a hotel bathroom?”

“No,” I replied with a sigh, too exhausted to even roll my eyes at his wisecrack. “I can’t believe where I am right now in _life_. Ezra turns ten this year… how is that even possible? And next year, I’ll be thirty and a father of five.” 

“I know it’s a lot, but you can handle it. You always do,” he said, scooting closer to me although he still had yet to touch me, careful to keep that invisible barrier in place. 

“But I’m sick of just ‘handling’ everything, you know? When I look back on my life, I want to be able to say that I enjoyed it. Not that I felt trapped the whole time.”

All in all, I led a very good life. A charmed life, some might even say. I had a career I actually liked, a decent amount of money, a handful of healthy, beautiful children, and the world’s most amazing brother. But I also felt tied down, forever obligated to be the version of Taylor Hanson that everyone else expected me to be. I’d been stuck in that role for so long that I wasn’t even sure what I’d do with true freedom, should it ever be handed to me.

“Do you feel trapped when you’re with me?” he asked quietly.

“Never.”

“How about when you’re with Alex?” 

Zac’s voice grew even softer, his eyes filled with sad uncertainty. I slowly moved my hand to cover his, feeling him shiver slightly at the touch. 

“After what you walked in on earlier, I can only imagine the thoughts that must be running through your head right now… but I don’t love him, Zac. Yes, we have a history and I’d be lying if I said I don’t find him attractive, but what I feel for him is nothing compared to what you do to me.”

“What do I do to you?” His words were barely audible as his fingers grazed the inside of my wrist, leaving fiery imprints along the sensitive skin.

“I think you know,” I said, grabbing his hand and placing it over my jean-clad thigh. 

His tongue darted across his parted lips as his gaze lowered to my lap, his chest heaving beneath the tight t-shirt he was wearing. He brushed his thumb across my growing erection and I sucked in a breath to suppress a moan.

“Would you really have let him watch me fuck you at that party?” he asked huskily.

It was a serious question, but it was impossible to answer in the midst of what was happening. His mouth was on my neck, his hands fumbling to unfasten the button on my jeans, and I was rendered dizzy and entirely pliable beneath him. He was set on taking control of me, and I was all too eager to submit, my hips bucking toward him as I silently asked for more. Would I have let Alex watch? Probably. But we were drunk, and dangerous situations have a way of appearing harmless when seen through that thick, distorted veil. 

“Zac…” I moaned helplessly as he made a fist around my length and began pumping in that perfect rhythm he always knew how to find. 

“Yeah?” 

“I want you. Only you.”

He replied by catching my lips with his as he crawled on top of me and pushed me to the floor. The impact hurt a little bit, but it was the best kind of pain.


	14. Backseat Driver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I live my life out on the edge. Yeah, I don't stop just 'cause it's red. Let's push this thing, see what we get.” – ZZ Ward._

Sunlight filtered through the blinds and pried my eyelids open, announcing the arrival of a new day. Yet despite my heavy heart, waking up wasn’t nearly as painful as I’d expected it to be. Yes, there was still the stress of another baby on the way, but that weight was somehow much easier to bear with Zac’s sleeping frame beside me, his slow, even breaths reminding me that it would all be okay somehow.

As much as I would have loved to stay in bed and replay certain events from the night before (such as Zac having his way with me until we were both blissfully spent), my conscience was awake now, and it was demanding that my body follow suit. So I reluctantly crawled out of bed and into the shower, taking my time as I lathered, rinsed, and relived the feeling of my little brother’s lips claiming every inch of me. 

I was dreading making the inevitable phone call to my wife, so I delayed it just a little while longer by buying a large cup of coffee from the hotel’s café. I inhaled sip after steaming sip, silently thanking the liquid for being so much more satisfying than the watery imitation offered up at the complimentary breakfast. 

Pumped full of strong caffeine, I knew that I would at least _sound_ chipper even if I didn’t necessarily feel that way, so I quickly dialed the familiar number before I lost my nerve. It rang and rang and rang, and I was just about to hang up and try again later when Natalie finally picked up, sounding short of breath.

“Hey, hon! I’m guessing you got my text?”

“I did,” I replied, cringing slightly at the pet name as I forced a small chuckle. “So, another baby, huh?”

“Yes, isn’t it amazing? I mean, we weren’t even really trying for one, and it happened anyway!” 

Her excitement shined through her voice to the point that I could almost see the bright smile I was sure was lighting up her face. Once again, I felt like the world’s worst husband and the sorriest excuse for a human being, because instead of smiling, I was on the verge of crying. And if any tears fell, they most certainly would not be happy ones.

“It was definitely a surprise.”

“I guess this means I won’t be able to get drunk at our wedding reception after all,” she said with a laugh. 

Ever since I’d agreed to the vow renewal, Natalie had been joking about how she was looking forward to letting loose at the reception, since she hadn’t been able to drink the first time around due to being pregnant with Ezra (and not to mention, being severely underage).

“Speaking of that…” I took in a deep breath, choosing my next words carefully. “Do you really think it’s such a good idea to go through with it?”

“What do you mean?”

I sighed, tugging my fingers through my damp hair. “It’s just that… isn’t our life crazy enough as it is? Won’t orchestrating this huge party just stress you out when you should be focusing on your health… and the baby’s?”

“Tay, sweetie, I know there’s a lot on both of our plates right now, but I’ve got it under control. Kate and Nikki have been pitching in and helping with all of the planning. We’re going to pick up our dresses today,” she gushed, an excited giggle escaping. “I just hope I don’t gain too much baby weight in the next few weeks.”

_At least someone has her priorities in order._ My fingernails stabbed the edges of the Styrofoam cup, carving little angry half-moons into it as I forced myself to swallow the bitter words on the tip of my tongue.

“Well, Katie just got here, so I should get going,” she chirped above the sudden commotion in the background. “I’ll call you tonight after I’ve put the kids to bed, okay?”

“Okay,” I answered quietly, although I really wanted to say _don’t bother_.

“Love you, babe!”

The line went dead and I wished that I could flatline right along with it. 

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Never in my life had I been so thankful for a rental car. There was nothing quite like going on a long, aimless drive with my favorite music playing in the background when I approached a breaking point, but so often when we were touring, I was stuck on a bus for weeks on end and was thus denied that luxury. 

After my phone conversation with Natalie, I could feel the anxiety and despair eating away at my insides, chipping away at what was left of my soul, and I knew I needed to get out of that hotel before I lost it. Zac followed closely behind as I ventured outside and into the parking lot. He didn’t ask what was wrong, but he didn’t have to. He always seemed to understand my moods before I had a chance to voice them, an intuitive sense that had grown even stronger over the last several months we’d spent together.

I adjusted the rear-view mirror and rolled my eyes when I saw my younger brother gazing at me from his reclined position in the backseat. There were only two of us in the car—meaning that Zac could have easily sat in the passenger seat—but instead, he chose to claim the back, his body stretched out across the sleek leather interior. 

“That was a stop sign, you know,” he pointed out, eying the intersection that I’d just cruised through.

And so it was. I shrugged and turned up the radio, happy to have found a station that wasn’t playing the same endless loop of Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars songs. 

“No one likes a backseat driver.”

“Well, maybe if you actually knew how to drive, I wouldn’t have to be one.”

Zac’s angelic grin offset his caustic words. As maddening as he could be at times (with his seemingly everlasting supply of immature comments and his dry, sarcastic sense of humor), he was infinitely more endearing. He’d learned how to turn on the charm at quite an early age, and it didn’t take long for him to figure out that his smile and those long, dark eyelashes of his would allow him to get away with mostly everything. 

“I’m getting kind of hungry,” I admitted, realizing that I hadn’t had a proper meal in close to two days. “Want to go to Lupe’s?”

I enjoyed Mexican cuisine no matter where I was, but there was something especially magical about it on the West Coast, and I had a feeling that a trip to our favorite burrito stand could turn my entire day around. I expected Zac to voice his agreement instantly, but instead he was silent for several long moments. I was convinced he hadn’t heard me and was about to repeat the question when he finally responded, his voice strangely thick and raspy. 

“I’d like to go somewhere else with you before lunch, if that’s alright.”

“Okay…” 

Before I could ask him where he wanted to go, he had rattled off a series of directions that left me staring back at him through the mirror in open-mouthed wonder. Zac was the most directionally challenged person I knew and only paid attention to his surroundings when he absolutely had to. People called me the dreamer but really, Zac was the one whose head was rarely where it was meant to be.

But here he was, reminding me that as comfortable as I was with him, I could never get _too_ comfortable because he’d always find another new way to surprise me. 

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Per Zac’s instruction, I brought the car to a stop at the top level of a virtually abandoned parking garage. It was usually Isaac who did this sort of thing, but apparently our older brother’s obscure sense of adventure had rubbed off on Zac as well. 

“Just so we’re clear, I have no clue where we are right now,” I remarked as I cut the engine.

“That’s kind of the point,” he said.

Tiring of his vagueness and his refusal to let me know exactly where he planned on taking me, I unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed out of the car. When several minutes passed and he made no move to join me, I removed my aviators and peered through the window to see what was taking him so long—and I just about lost my footing when I saw him lounging across the backseat, completely naked. He looked ridiculously pleased for some strange reason, the slap happy smile on his face making me wonder if he’d truly lost his mind. 

“What the hell are you _doing_?” I screeched after throwing the door open, equally confused and aroused by the sight that greeted me. His bare skin was beautifully bronzed, a contrast to my colorless complexion.

His only response was to grab the collar of my shirt and pull me in for a hungry kiss, kicking the door closed in the process. 

“What’s gotten into you?” I mumbled against his lips, his tongue cutting into my words as it thrust into my mouth.

“Have I ever told you about a certain car fantasy?” 

He removed my clothes as he spoke, as I was so stunned that I couldn’t think properly, let alone move. Our sex life had never involved much fantasy, our relationship itself being so amazingly unreal that I often felt like it was all just a dream, a product of my hopeful imagination. 

“No…”

“It involves you fucking me—right here, right now. If you’re up for it, I’d love to make it a reality.” 

He tossed my jeans and t-shirt to the floor and coaxed my semi-erect penis into his hand. His fingers knew exactly where to go and within moments, I was fully hard and rocking against him. I moaned shamelessly and threw my head back, giving him a perfect opportunity to lean in and draw a line of kisses up my neck.

“I take it that’s a yes?” he asked with a smirk, slowly teasing my cock while he watched for my reaction.

I nodded breathlessly as I ran a hand through my hair, forcing it out of my eyes, needing to cast aside every single barrier between us.

“Good. Oh, and one more thing…” 

His teeth grazed my earlobe and I shivered. 

“I want you to be rough with me,” he whispered.

My mind swam with questions while he fumbled through the pocket of his discarded shorts, the small bottle he retrieved and set down by my thigh an indication that he’d planned this. Did he know that I was always holding back? That as much as I loved the idea of being buried to the hilt inside of him, I couldn’t stand the thought of hurting him? Even when I wanted nothing more than to let myself go, I maintained my composure because I was afraid of what might happen if we both lost control. There was always an element of caution in my actions; after all, he was still (relatively) new to this, and the last thing I wanted to do was freak him out or scare him off. 

But now, he was more or less demanding that I throw that caution to the wind.

“How rough?” I asked as I ran both hands down his tanned chest, flicking lightly at his nipples.

“A hell of a lot more rough than _that_.”

I twisted them sharply and he cried out, the sound vibrating against my lips as I kissed him. The power he’d handed over to me made my head spin, and I needed a way to stay grounded. I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth, working it between my teeth until I felt his hands in my hair and his hips bucking toward me. Pulling away, I stared directly into his blazing eyes and delivered a devilish smile of my own.

“I think I can manage that,” I replied.


	15. Fantasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies? Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them? I have. I am fucking crazy. But I am free.” – Lana Del Rey._

I was no stranger to the art of controlling those around me. Over the years, it was a skill I’d studied and honed carefully; knowing how to get inside of people’s heads and hearts was essential to the survival of our career. Yet while I knew how to manipulate along with the best of them, I didn’t view myself as a particularly dominant person—especially when it came to Zac. He was my weakness, the one who kept me sane, the only person in the world who knew how to make me come undone. When we were together, I didn’t mind letting him take the reins. Honestly, it was a relief to let my guard down and realize that I didn’t have to be in charge of every single aspect of my life. 

But lately, I’d somehow lost control of _everything_. I’d gotten sucked into a sea of utter helplessness, the sudden reappearance of Alex joining forces with the news of my wife’s pregnancy to form a tidal wave that loomed just above my head, waiting for the perfect moment to descend and smother me. 

And maybe Zac had sensed that. Maybe this was his way of letting me reclaim that power, of reminding me that I didn’t have to be the victim. 

“Put your mouth on me.”

The command flowed past my lips with surprising ease and Zac readily complied, dropping quickly to his knees. He was in what had to be a less than comfortable position, his firm body wedged tightly between the seats, but he did not voice a single complaint as he stared up at me. In fact, he seemed to enjoy being told what to do, which came as a total shock to me. Zac hardly ever asked for guidance, nor had he ever expressed the desire to be ordered around. His wife demanded obedience, and because he so often chose the path of least resistance and surrendered to her rather than face her wrath, he let his rebellious nature run free whenever he was with me. 

I wanted to ask what had caused this change in him (was this fantasy sparked by the simple desire to help me, or was it the result of something deeper, a sort of carnal need?), but now was not the time for questions. With his mouth only inches away from my erection, I couldn’t hold back any longer. 

So I let him take me. 

His lips were already swollen from my earlier assault and a trace of his blood lingered on my tongue, fueling my arousal. I probably should have been disgusted, but instead I was drunk off the taste, cherishing that bittersweet, metallic flavor of pleasure mixed with pain. With a groan, I slid into his mouth until I felt myself slam against the back of his throat. His eyes widened, watering a little, and I remained motionless above him as I waited for him to recover. In no time, he was taking all of me in earnest, meeting the driving of my hips with deep, open-mouthed kisses around my length.

“Yeah, fucking suck my cock,” I breathed. 

My cheeks burned as the words escaped. As talkative as I was known to be, I didn’t speak much during sex, typically choosing to swallow down the dirty thoughts and phrases on the tip of my tongue so that my brother wouldn’t think I was some kind of freak. But my usual rules did not apply today. And the way Zac’s eyes glazed over was proof enough that he was loving every bit of this just as much as I was. 

I threaded my fingers through his hair and kept them there, holding him in place as his lips and tongue grew more and more insistent. I was reminded of the way he had been with Alex—rough, callous, and impatient—and the thought made me thrust against him even harder. 

Zac’s mouth was far too skilled, every motion he made drawing me nearer to the brink. Realizing just how close I was, I stopped him, releasing my grip on his hair and tilting his face toward mine. God, he was so beautiful. That strong jaw that reminded me we were from the same mold but still so very different; those eyes that pierced through me and calmed me down at the exact same time. 

“Get up here,” I whispered in his ear, brushing strands of hair away from his neck so I could taste his skin.

He let out a soft moan and leaned into me. His overworked lips asked for a tender kiss, but I refused to give him one—not yet, at least. Instead, I pulled him up and pushed him down so that his face was pressed against the seat, his ass in the air and just begging for me to touch it. So I did, raking my fingernails across his ample flesh and feeling him shift beneath me, the smooth leather creaking in protest under our combined weight.

He trembled and let out a string of words that was difficult to separate from his labored breaths. Sometimes, when he was singing, it was similarly hard to understand him, the clarity of the lyrics getting lost inside of whatever he was feeling. 

“Hmm?” I teased his entrance with my index finger without permitting it to slip inside. Yes, he’d asked for rough sex, but I couldn’t bring myself to penetrate him without making sure he was sufficiently prepared. 

“Spank me.”

The breathless plea unhinged me and I paused the slow, circular motion of my hand, needing to make sure that I’d heard him correctly. He too was holding his breath, and I took advantage of the silence by slicing right through it, my palm connecting swiftly with the bare skin of his ass. This was foreign territory for both of us and I knew I should tread lightly, but I couldn’t stop now. There was something deliciously thrilling about heeding his request and before I knew it, I’d spanked him again, this time with a little more force.

He responded by hissing through his teeth, a hand snaking around his erection to provide some relief, although the space he had to work with was narrow and confining at best. Nevertheless, he groaned as he touched himself and I felt my own cock swell. He was unabashedly enjoying this; my little brother was far more kinky than I’d given him credit for.

“You like that?” I asked, slapping him for a third time, watching as his skin turned red, tattooed with a vague but fiery imprint of my hand.

“God, yes!”

“You’ll like this, too,” I promised.

I grabbed the small bottle and coaxed the cool, clear liquid into my hand, barely allowing it to warm before shoving two fingers into him. With my free hand, I spanked him again and again, timing each subtle blow with the rhythm I’d set deep inside of him. I was controlling every move he made, every sound, every sharp intake of breath. And he was responding to me almost like he knew exactly what was coming, although we’d never done anything quite like this before.

“Taylor, _fuck_ ,” Zac cried, arching his back as his hand slid up and down his length at a feverish pace. 

“Are you ready?” 

I barely recognized my own voice—it was low and thick, coated with layers of desire and absolute need. He slowed his stroking to a stop and nodded, turning to lock eyes with me. Little flecks of sunlight burned into me, urging me to finish what we’d started. My hands caressed his hips and I leaned down and pressed a small but heated kiss to his shoulder before filling him up completely. 

He was hotter that day than on any other, his muscles tensing around me as we moved together. The air around us was warm but I wasn’t stifled by it at all—no, I was finally free. I wrapped my arm around his waist and pushed in even deeper, bringing us closer than we had ever been before. Fuck, it felt so amazing.

Zac’s moans and whimpers floated into my ear as I drove into him. He told me that he never wanted me to stop. He wanted more, everything I had to give, and so I gave it to him eagerly. I’d spent almost twenty-nine years waiting for someone to desire _all_ of me, not just the select bits and pieces that looked or sounded good in theory. I hoped he could sense my gratitude in the desperate kisses I placed along his back, his neck, and finally, his lips when I flipped him around to face me. Because he put up with my quirks and flaws. Because he forgave me when I wasn’t worthy of forgiveness. Because his unconditional love for me was unlike anything else I’d ever felt in all the years I’d lived. 

“Zac, I—,”

“Shh.”

I gazed down at him, startled by the interruption. He smiled at me through heavy-lidded eyes and tightened my fingers around his erection, his eyelids falling closed as I touched him.

“Don’t get all sappy on me now,” he said. “Just fuck me.”

And who was I to deny him what he wanted? I pulled all the way out of him before entering him one last time, my skin slapping decisively against his, our voices tangling together and striking the windows in perfect harmony. He was pulsing in my hand, bucking shamelessly against me, and I knew that neither of us had much longer. 

“Tay.” 

He grabbed the chokers around my neck and yanked me down on top of him, crushing my lips with his as he came. I shuddered and collapsed against him, my vision blurring despite my keen attempts to keep him in focus. My release came in four, maybe five rolling waves—it was hard for me to keep count in the midst of my unraveling. Once I was spent, I nestled in beside him and caught a lock of his hair between my fingers. There were few sights more glorious than watching him bask in the afterglow of a pleasure I’d helped create. His cheeks were flushed, his lips slightly parted as he leaned against me. He looked so serene and happy. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t enough room for two grown men to lie down side by side in the backseat of a tiny rental car; we always found a way to fit together.

“So, did that live up to your fantasy?” I asked, only partially joking.

He laughed and answered me with a passionate kiss, one that worked past the surface of my lips and settled inside of my heart.

“You pretty much blew my mind,” he replied. “Thanks for humoring me.” 

“Are you kidding? It was exactly what I needed.” 

I rubbed my hand along his lower stomach, playing with the soft tendrils of hair that rested there. Within moments, his breathing fell into a tranquil, undulating rhythm and I realized that he was asleep. I smiled and settled my chin against the top of his head, my lips grazing his hair. 

I was drifting in and out of consciousness when my godforsaken cell phone brought me back to life, its sharp rings only slightly muffled from beneath the pile of clothing where it lay. I groaned and reached across Zac’s sleeping frame to pick it up, only to throw it back down to the floor when I caught sight of a familiar name. It rang a few more times before finally admitting defeat and falling silent. I made a mental note to turn the ringer off in the future; I was getting very tired of these constant interruptions. 

“Who was that?” Zac mumbled as he opened his eyes to meet mine, a hint of concern in his voice. 

“Nobody.” I pressed my lips to his and flashed him a reassuring smile, trying to preserve the perfection of the moment.

And trying to ignore the fact that I’d just told a blatant lie.


	16. Jarrod

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Who can really say how decisions are made, how emotions change, how ideas arise? We talk about inspiration, about a bolt of lightning from a clear sky, but perhaps everything is just as simple and just as infinitely complex as the processes that make a particular leaf fall at a particular moment. That point has been reached, that's all. It has to happen, and it does happen.” - John Ajvide Lindqvist._

After eating our weight in shredded beef and nachos at Lupe’s, Zac and I wound up at a bar. Once again, Zac’s surprisingly accurate internal compass had led us there, his destination of choice being a hole-in-the-wall that looked like an absolute dump from the outside, but whose interior was actually rather charming. 

Behind the modest bar was a fair-skinned older woman named Lorraine with a thick braid that swung from shoulder to shoulder as she spoke. She reminded me of our own mother with her kind eyes, strong personality, and a slight accent suggesting she might have once lived in the south. She warmed up to us instantly and seemed to love Zac in particular, taking care to add a handful of extra maraschinos to his handmade cherry Coke because he had “a sweet smile to match.” Their little exchange was so cute that it was almost sickening, but I certainly couldn’t argue with her. Zac’s smile had a way of lighting up the room when he meant it.

We were having a good time just drinking and talking, and I should have been content. But the longer I sat there, the more my mind drifted back to the phone call I’d chosen to ignore. Eventually, my masochistic curiosity got the best of me and I excused myself and headed for the restroom, leaving Zac and “Lorry” (as we were instructed to call her) in the midst of an animated discussion about their favorite movies. 

I sat down on the closed toilet lid and took a deep breath before pressing the button to listen to my most recent voicemail message.

“Taylor, it’s me… Jarrod,” a soft voice carried into my ear, accompanied by a low, nervous chuckle. “So, this is random, but I live in L.A. now and I heard you were in town for that radio event… and I was thinking if you’re still in town, maybe we can meet up for dinner tonight? No worries if you can’t—I know this is last-minute—but it would be great to see you again, so call me back if you’re interested. Okay… bye.”

The automated prompt filled my ear before I was ready for it, asking me if I wanted to save or delete the message, but I was too rattled to make that choice so I just sat there, the phone pressed against my ear like I truly believed that if I waited long enough, it might teach me how to dodge these endless curve balls that life seemed to enjoy throwing at me.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Jarrod Gorbel was one of the best decisions I’d ever made—and he was also one of the very worst. I’d seen him perform with his former band at a music hall in Brooklyn the summer after my twenty-first birthday, and the impression he made on me in that dark, smoky club was a strong and lasting one. Ever since that day, his band remained at the top of my list of groups to tour with, but the timing never worked out in our favor, and a few years later, I caught wind of their unfortunate breakup. 

When he resurfaced as a solo artist the following year, I couldn’t _not_ jump on the opportunity to invite him on the road with us. And to my surprise, he agreed pretty immediately to the idea of opening for us during the very last month of the tour.

Unlike a lot of our other opening acts, who were overly (if not to say obnoxiously) excited about spending time with us, Jarrod kept to himself. Maybe that's why I was so drawn to him. Or maybe it was sheer loneliness and boredom that led me to him (since Ike's wife and kids were on tour with us that month, my older brother was practically glued to Nikki’s side, and Zac was always buried in a book or video game). 

Whatever the reason, I started tracking Jarrod down after our shows. Usually, I found him at a bar around the corner from whatever shitty venue we happened to have played that night. He was always alone, and he was always nursing a beer while he stared off into space, looking distant but not at all discontent in his solitude. It was a quality I envied and often wished I could possess, but truth be told, as crazy and crowded as my life was, I’d grown so accustomed to the constant noise and motion that without it, I was completely lost. Maybe I was hoping that his almost palpable aura of peace would rub off on me, too. 

When I first approached, he seemed surprised and almost off-put by my presence. But I had yet to meet a person who didn’t warm up to me with enough time and persistence, so I kept at it. I appeared by his side night after night and ordered whatever local beer was on tap before striking up an idle conversation. I was particularly drawn to his tattoos, which ran like colorful sleeves down both of his arms. They were such a huge part of him but he never talked about them, which intrigued me even more; most of my tattooed friends were all too eager to discuss what had inspired the ink that marked their skin. 

It took about two weeks but finally, after a show we played just south of Washington, D.C., the wall around him crumbled and he opened up to me. That night, I didn’t find him _in_ the bar but in the corner of the dimly lit patio out back, holding a small glass of whiskey and a cigarette as he stood beneath a heat lamp that did little to ease the bite of the mid-November air. 

He was dressed in exactly the same outfit he’d worn onstage: skinny jeans and a plaid button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His body art was so vibrant under the fluorescent stage lights but in the moonlight, the tattoos looked more like a cloak of shadows, like little ghosts of memories. I walked up quietly beside him, holding my beer bottle by its neck, and leaned in toward the heat source. In a scarf and bulky jacket with two shirts underneath, I was sufficiently prepared for the cold weather, yet I was still somehow freezing. Jarrod, however, seemed barely fazed.

“Great show tonight.”

It was how I began every single one of our post-concert conversations, but despite the redundancy of my words, I always meant them. He was a phenomenal musician and performer but had such a laid-back, quiet personality that it was easy for him to slip by unnoticed by most. Normally, he nodded in vague agreement with my statement or sent a compliment my way, but on that night, things were different. Not only was he looking like he wanted to mainline the drink in front of him—a drink far stronger than his usual beer of choice—but he didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken. Instead, he tilted his head back, drained the remainder of his drink, and then focused his attention on his cigarette, his gray-green eyes following the thin spirals of smoke as they escaped him. 

Being around smokers tended to bother me ever since I’d quit, but there was something soothing about watching Jarrod smoke. He radiated a calmness that could have been mistaken for apathy if a person didn’t know better. But I saw the way he sang, and I knew there was nothing unfeeling about the man who stood just a few paces away from me, blowing puffs of poison-filled air toward the sky.

“Tonight, I lost the only person who ever gave a damn about me.”

His voice was so low that it almost got lost in the howling wind and the commotion from the bar behind us, but luckily, I was used to picking out the sounds that mattered from a sea of otherwise meaningless noise. 

“Shit. I’m sorry to hear that.”

The flick of his wrist as he tossed aside his cigarette was much more subtle than an eye roll would have been, but I got the message nonetheless. He didn’t believe that I could possibly understand or sympathize with him. And maybe he was right—maybe I hadn’t been faced with much rejection when it came to people loving me—but I sure as hell knew what it was like to be let down. 

I'll admit that it wasn't the most eloquent response, but to this day I will maintain that it was heartfelt. Jarrod had always been able to find his way to my core, to shake me when no one else could.

He fell silent, running a tired hand through his dark hair, and I darted back into the bar to order another round. After presenting him with a fresh shot of whiskey, I let my fingers brush against his forearm—an act that could have come across as accidental, but we both knew was anything but. It had been so long since I’d touched a man in more than a casual way, and my whole body burned as my fingers followed the ridges of tattooed muscle.

“I don’t need your company, Taylor,” he said.

He had such a careful way of speaking, each syllable deliberate and packed with meaning, just like his songs that read more like poems (something I was reminded of whenever I came across the sheet music he so often left scattered around the tour bus). 

“Maybe I need yours.”

His lips curled into a barely perceptible smile as he took a drink. My fingers had come to rest on the majestic, winged creature etched along his forearm and suddenly, Jarrod was leaning into my touch instead of pulling away like I’d expected him to. 

“You have a wife and kids,” he reminded me. “What could I possibly give you that they can’t?”

The cloud-covered stars were the only ones that knew what happened next. Without speaking, I tilted my head up and pressed my lips firmly to his. The smell of nicotine filled my every sense; it was rich and altogether dizzying. But it was the sadness radiating from somewhere deep inside of his colorless eyes that pulled me under.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Our affair was short-lived, lasting only until the end of the tour. Neither one of us claimed to want anything more. There were nights when our desires got out of hand, of course, but we never entertained the idea of actually _being together_. Still, I would never forget the things he taught me, like how to smile your way through a song when your heart is breaking, or how to remain completely silent while receiving a blowjob in a deserted parking lot.

We were far more reckless than we should have been, but rumors never started about the two of us the way they did with Alex. And Ike and Zac were too preoccupied with their own lives to notice my frequent disappearing acts. If they were even aware that I was spending an uncharacteristic amount of time with Jarrod, they never commented on it. It wasn’t that unusual for me to form stronger bonds with the opening acts than either of my brothers, anyway. 

I tried to contact Jarrod that Christmas, about a month after we had last spoken, but he didn’t pick up his phone. He wasn’t clingy or overly sentimental and honestly, I hadn’t expected him to call me back, nor should I ever have expected him to consider me as anything more than just a rebound. 

And if _I_ felt anything more for him than lust and longing, I ignored the feelings because I had to. Letting go of people was something I was good at, even if it was the part of my life I hated the most. I had no choice but to write him off as yet another fling, just a way to pass the time as I handled the dark truth of my heart, the forbidden love that I was convinced could never see the light of day.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

“You okay?” Zac’s voice was laced with concern when I finally rejoined him at the bar. 

I nodded and then shook my head in amusement as I stared down into my empty glass. Of course, in my absence, Zac had polished off not only his drink, but mine as well. 

He had a bad habit of doing that.

But despite the fact that he drank my $8 beer without asking, I was so grateful to have him in my life that I leaned in and brushed my lips along the side of his jaw. His eyes widened instantly, and I figured he was just taken aback by my public display of affection until I noticed Lorry standing at the opposite side of the bar, twirling her long, thick braid between her fingers while she watched us.

The blush on my cheeks was so hot it was almost painful, and I wanted to disappear beneath the floorboards, but I forced myself to meet her eyes and was surprised to find her smiling.

“It’s okay.” She walked toward us and swept away our empty glasses, reaching out to give my hair a little tease. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Zac’s hand found mine beneath the bar and I squeezed it gently, silently thanking him for giving me something to hold onto in this crazy mess of a life.


	17. Unfaithful Interruptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn't get written because someone knocked on the door.” – Martin Luther King Jr._

“That was a damn good day,” Zac declared, folding his arms behind his head and closing his eyes. 

My brother’s shirtless chest and serene smile pushed all thoughts of Jarrod from my mind. I knew that the relief from my complicated past was only temporary, but I clung to it with fierce desperation, needing to remain here in the present, where things actually mattered. I rolled onto my side and dragged my index finger along his collarbone, appreciating every beautiful flaw on his smooth, bronzed skin. 

“You’re full of surprises, you know that?” I murmured, a sigh escaping his perfect, parted lips as I gently teased his nipple. “Fantasizing about car sex, asking to get spanked…”

Zac blushed and struggled to sit up, his eyes popping open at my remark. 

“I’m a little shocked you went through with it, to be honest,” he said.

“Really?”

He nodded. “I mean, I wanted you to, and I know there’s still a fire somewhere in there… but you don’t really let it out much anymore.”

His eyes pierced mine, and in their depths I saw a gravity that took me by surprise. What had started as a fun, playful conversation was quickly transforming into a heavy one that I wasn’t quite prepared for. Then again, when was I ever entirely prepared for him? 

“When we were younger, you always took charge. It was an automatic instinct—something you just did without thinking. And there were times when I wanted to throw things at you for being such a control freak. But lately, I don’t know…” He captured his bottom lip between his teeth and regarded me thoughtfully. “Lately… I’ve kind of been missing it.”

“I wasn’t a control freak,” I muttered, lowering my gaze to the wrinkled sheets that spanned the narrow space between us.

“Oh, yes you fucking were. You still are, sometimes.” He caught my chin in his hand and tilted it up toward him, greeting me with a knowing smile. “But it’s just one of the many things I love about you.”

As I stared into his eyes, I felt a shiver move through me at the words I knew he felt but rarely uttered. Natalie made similar comments to me all the time, but for some reason, they meant more when Zac said them. They felt _real_ when he said them, like he was divulging the truth of his heart. 

I leaned in and pressed my mouth to his, smiling against his soft lips because there was nothing quite like kissing him. He kissed me back deeply and laced his fingers through my hair, groaning as the tips of our tongues touched. Then he pulled away and ran his hands down both of my arms, pausing on the muscles along my biceps that I’d been working on building over the last several months. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about them—my body had never been hard or rugged like so many other guys my age, and I was worried that they looked awkward and out of place in comparison to the rest of me—but Zac clearly liked them. He bowed his head and ran his tongue along my burning flesh, the sensation comforting and incredibly erotic all at once. I let out a little moan of appreciation, my eyes falling closed as he found the sensitive skin of my neck and sucked softly. 

“Kate never lets me do this,” he mused.

“What—give her hickeys?”

“No,” he replied with a sigh. “She never lets me relax. She’s always asking me to do things for her, or reminding me about all of the things I didn’t do…”

I opened my eyes and blinked through the haze of my desire, taken aback by his blunt admission. Although we were closer than we’d ever been before, Zac still wasn’t very open about his relationship with his wife. In fact, I often got the distinct feeling that he avoided talking about her around me because he feared it would upset me. And in a way, he was right—it _did_ upset me, but only because I knew she didn’t make him happy. 

“Sorry,” he said, his eyes darkening. “I just killed the mood, didn’t I?”

“No. I like it when you talk to me,” I said. “You can always talk to me… about Kate, about anything. You know that, right?”

“I know, but what’s there to say? It’s always the same old shit with her.”

We both fell silent and I tugged absently at the string of pendants around my neck, a restless habit I was prone to whenever I didn’t know quite what to do or say. How could I offer Zac any words of advice when I had no idea how to advise him? If I ever stumbled across the key to true happiness, I would hand it over to him willingly, because his well-being had always meant more to me than my own. But I certainly hadn’t found it yet. 

“If you want to know the truth, I’m jealous of you and Ike. Your wives adore you, worship you, but Kate treats me so differently,” he finally spoke, brushing the hair from his eyes. “And it’s not that I even want to be worshiped—trust me, I get enough of that from our fans, who have no clue who I really am—but it would just be nice to feel like I’m worth something, you know? I wasn’t Kate’s first choice; I wasn’t _anyone_ ’s first choice. And it just really sucks to know that the only reason she chose me is that I was the only available option.”

I was rendered speechless by his outburst. None of what Zac had just said was exactly news to me; it was certainly no secret that Kate nagged him more than she pleased him, and that she wore frowns much more easily than smiles. But there was something altogether depressing about the way he admitted to his state of total misery. Until recently, I didn’t have a clue as to how fundamentally unhappy he was. He hid it so well, behind jokes and a sarcastic personality that never gave way to even a hint of self-pity. 

“Well, you mean the world to _me_ ,” I said quietly, touching my forehead to his and feeling his warm breath against my cheek.

He pulled me in for a kiss, the intensity of his embrace almost knocking the wind out of me, and suddenly every single trace of sadness on his face was gone, replaced by that stubborn yet endearing streak of mischief I had come to know so well.

“Your back’s a little sunburned,” he pointed out, his fingers pressing gingerly against the skin of my upper back as his lips moved down to meet my ear. “Want me to put some lotion on it?”

I sucked in a breath and nodded, watching as he reached across me to retrieve the small bottle by the bedside. After pouring out a generous handful of silky liquid, he ran his palm across my back, his strong fingers working through the seemingly permanent knots in my neck. Years of strain and interrupted sleep had put them there and I knew they’d never truly fade, but my little brother’s touch made the hard parts of my life so much easier to bear. 

Soon, his hand left my back and snaked around my torso and in one swift motion, he had pushed my boxers down and wrapped his slick fingers all around me. 

“God, Zac,” I mumbled.

He picked up the pace of his stroking and pinned my hips against the bed with his free hand, his fingernails digging into my sides as he found a steady rhythm. Without any restraints, I would have been arching toward him, grabbing at him, needing to feel as much of him as possible, but it was clear that he wanted to be in control this time. 

“You loved spanking me earlier, didn’t you?” he whispered in my ear, his index finger trailing lower and lower as I trembled against him. 

“Fuck, yes,” I cried out softly when his finger entered me. He was forceful but maintained just enough composure to leave me wanting more.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” he asked as a second finger joined the first.

“I think you know my answer.” My head was spinning and I bit down on my bottom lip as he shoved his fingers even deeper inside of me.

“First, I want to feel your mouth on me.”

I was all too happy to oblige, the task being just as pleasurable for me as it was for him. He was already impossibly hard as I darted my tongue out for that first forbidden taste, and his cock swelled as it slid past my lips, salty droplets landing on my tongue that I lapped up eagerly. In no time, he was bucking into my mouth and begging me to take him all the way.

“Taylor,” he groaned when I lifted my mouth off of him and ventured lower, my tongue gently probing his entrance.

“Yeah?” 

“I’m going to fuck you now.”

I smiled into his blazing eyes as he pushed me down onto the bed and lowered himself on top of me. My head knocked into the headboard and a jolt of searing pain shot through me, but it was nothing compared to the absolute bliss of being filled by him. 

There was nothing in the world that could ever compare to that feeling.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I whistled a happy tune as I turned off the shower and joined Zac in bed, looking forward to a quiet evening filled with glorious amounts of sleep (and possibly more sex). But because the universe apparently enjoyed torturing me and refused to grant me peace for more than just a few minutes at a time, my iPhone came to life as soon as I sat down. Zac set his book aside and picked it up, his eyes narrowing as he glanced down at the screen.

“Who’s Jarrod?” he asked as it continued vibrating in his open palm.

“You know him,” I said, willing the words out as quickly as possible to stop my voice from shaking. “Skinny… sleeve tattoos… has a crazy obsession with sushi…”

Zac stared at me blankly.

“Jarrod Gorbel. He opened for us at the end of the Shout it Out tour.”

“Oh, _that_ Jarrod,” he replied, a look of relief crossing his features that, had he known my history with the tattooed musician, he never would have let appear.

“Yes, that Jarrod. How many Jarrods do you think I know?”

Zac shrugged. “You know a lot of people, Tay. It’s kinda difficult for the rest of us to keep up.”

I shook my head and grabbed my phone from him, eager to silence its incessant buzzing.

“You’re not going to answer it?”

“Nah.”

“Why not? I thought you guys were friends.”

“We were, but…” I broke off uncertainly and sighed, realizing that I was trapped and had no one but myself to blame. “You know what? You’re right—I should just answer it.”

I placed the phone to my ear as calmly as I could, praying that I sounded casual as I greeted my former flame across the line. Zac knew me better than anyone and I was convinced that he saw right through me, that he surely detected the guilty tremor in my tone, but he didn’t appear to notice anything out of the ordinary. Within seconds, he was engrossed in his book again, thick locks of hair hiding his face from view as if giving me permission to carry on with this ridiculous charade.

As Jarrod’s voice drifted into my ear, I closed my eyes and cursed myself as a liar, a hypocrite, and the world’s worst human being for expecting Zac to share his private thoughts and feelings with me when I so rarely expressed any of my own. 

So much of my past was still a secret, tucked away in a dark place deep inside, and I wondered when—if ever—I’d stop living this enormous lie.


	18. Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _““At that time, I well remember whatever could excite—certain accidents of the weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me, because they woke the being I was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry I could not satisfy. One night a thunder-storm broke—too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and pierced by white and blinding bolts.” – Charlotte Brontë._

You would think that practically an entire lifetime of acting under pressure would have prepared me for this. But as I sat on that hotel bed with the phone pressed to my ear while Zac remained silent and motionless beside me, I froze, too. I was nothing but a steaming pile of chicken shit, stuck between a rock (turning Jarrod down) and a much harder place (telling Zac the truth), so when my ex-lover asked me if I’d like to meet him for dinner that night, I didn’t even hesitate.

I just said yes.

Jarrod wasn’t a very loud person—a variable that had the potential change but never did, no matter his whereabouts—and I was convinced that Zac hadn’t heard so much as a word of his side of the conversation, but he’d clearly heard mine. When I hung up, my conscience crept back into view and should have delivered a swift kick to my ass, but instead it simply reminded me that if the roles had been reversed, I would have at least expected an invitation. So I sucked in a long, labored breath and asked Zac if he wanted to join us.

“No, thanks,” Zac answered calmly, turning another page of his book without looking up.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m still stuffed from Lupe’s, but if I feel like eating later, I’ll just see if Ike wants to go out or something.”

And that was that. 

I got dressed quickly, throwing on a pair of jeans and the first button-down shirt I could find, which just happened to be Zac’s. He smiled at me as I rolled up the sleeves of the worn plaid fabric and then he leaned in, pressing his impossibly full lips to mine.

“Thanks for an amazing day,” he whispered, his mouth lingering on the tiny crescents his teeth had left on my neck earlier.

It was a perfectly relaxed exchange, void of the drama I’d been fearing ever since my iPhone had invited yet another unexpected guest into our lives. But why would my little brother’s reaction have been anything _but_ normal? For all Zac knew, Jarrod really was just my friend and nothing more, and the situation at hand really was a simple one: just two old friends catching up over dinner.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever Jarrod and I had started two years ago wasn’t quite finished yet.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

The knot of anxiety in my gut had only tightened on the short but taxing drive to Jarrod’s apartment, my hands trembling so violently that I almost dropped my keys in the middle of the parking lot. Somehow, though, I managed to make it up the flight of narrow stairs without incident and knocked on the door, raking the hair out of my eyes and forcing myself into what I hoped was a casual demeanor.

Seeing Jarrod again wasn’t quite as surprising as seeing Alex. After all, I’d had at least a little bit of time to prepare for the idea of facing him, and it had only been a couple of years since our latest encounter, not ten. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from comparing the man standing in front of me to my most recent memory of him. His hair was longer and streaked with natural highlights but other than that, his appearance hadn’t really changed at all. He still had that quietly confident way of carrying himself, and he still kept his heart locked behind his eyes, covered with hazy clouds that scattered only when he believed no one else was looking. Jarrod probably didn’t know how much I loved those glimpses into such a deep and sacred part of him. He didn’t know this either, but he’d taught me that a lack of color can be beautiful. His eyes wavered between a spectrum of brilliant colors but never could decide on a single one to call their own. They were easily one of the most striking pairs I’d ever come across. 

He smiled and stepped aside to let me enter. As suspected, there were no clichéd expressions of greeting. Jarrod wasn’t one to talk when words weren’t absolutely necessary.

“Nice place,” I remarked. 

Unlike him, I didn’t know how to shut up.

His apartment was small but looked exactly how I’d pictured it—sparsely decorated but rich with meaning, the few black-and-white photos he’d chosen to hang on the wall clearly just as precious to him as the vintage Martin propped up against the dark blue couch. I also noticed that there wasn’t a TV or laptop or any other electronic distraction in sight.

“Thanks.” 

He led me through the living room and into the kitchen, which was hardly large enough to comfortably accommodate one grown man, let alone two. The room smelled like incense, and I breathed it in and tried not to stare at the view as he leaned down to grab two bottles of beer from the fridge.

“So, what made you decide to move out to L.A.?” I asked, accepting the beer from his outstretched hand and wandering back toward the living room.

“It was time for a change.” He perched on the edge of the couch and I sat down between him and his gorgeous guitar. “Brooklyn is my home and always will be, but why not explore what else is out there while I still can, you know?”

Honestly, I didn’t. 

Sure, I’d spent a decent amount of time in California and New York, but my visits there were always temporary. The thought of leaving Oklahoma behind and starting over somewhere new was terrifying and tantalizing, like forbidden fruit I’d lusted after my whole life but knew I’d never get to taste. I was so deeply rooted in Tulsa now—my entire world was there and probably always would be—that I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, but I couldn’t deny the fact that I felt trapped there sometimes. Nor could I ignore the pangs of jealousy that sliced into me like knives whenever I was around people like Jarrod and Alex, wandering souls who knew the true meaning of freedom. They weren’t tied to anyone; they could live as they pleased. But I was different, even though I didn’t want to be. My life had been overtaken by a strong moral sense that wasn’t even my own, the shackles that cut into me a bit more with each new day reminders of the foolish decisions I’d made. 

I tried to bury my resentful feelings with a mouthful of beer, but they got lodged in my chest, stuck much too close to my heart, and I knew that Jarrod picked up on the change. He slid from the arm of the couch and down onto the plump, faded cushion beside me, our legs just barely touching.

“You look lost,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

I shut my eyes briefly and shook my head, taking another drink for liquid courage if for nothing else.

“Are you ready for some breaking news? Natalie’s pregnant again.”

“Whoa.”

It was his turn to silence his emotions with a harried gulp of beer, and like he did most things, he pulled off the act much more convincingly than I had. But his eyes flickered just before landing on the thick gray carpet, and I knew that my words had unsettled him.

“Yeah, I just found out yesterday. She sent me a fucking _text_ with the sonogram. And I… you’re right. I _am_ lost. I have no idea where to go from here, or how I’m supposed to feel about this.” I laughed sadly, reaching out to touch the smooth neck of his guitar with my unoccupied hand. “I mean, it’s not like I have a choice in the matter anyway, right? I never have. She’s my wife, and I love her, but this isn’t who I am. We’re talking five kids, Jar—fucking _five_. It’s like the world’s most awful joke and my life is the punch line.”

My fingers fell away from the guitar and I let out a seamless stream of breaths, just like I used to do whenever I smoked. It was comforting to watch the clouds of toxic air drift further and further away, like if they disappeared completely, maybe I’d be allowed to truly start over.

“Come on. Let’s go get some sushi,” he said softly, coaxing the empty beer bottle out of my unsteady grip. 

When he walked away, I caught sight of a small lightning bolt etched into the skin of his right arm, just below his shoulder. I wasn’t an expert on Jarrod’s tattoos, but I’d always been fascinated by them, and never once during all the times I’d studied them had I noticed that particular symbol. It stood out boldly against all of the others, the bright inkstain at once a beautiful contrast and a mockery to the rest of his patterned body. 

Wordlessly, I stood and followed him out of the apartment. I was vaguely aware of my surroundings, but the light flowing down from the street lamps and the distant hum of city traffic faded into the background, muted by my heavy thoughts.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I wasn’t in the mood for sushi (truth be told, I rarely was), but it didn’t matter. When Jarrod had his heart set on sushi, there was no talking him out of it, a fact I’d learned on tour when I spent many a midnight hour picking at lukewarm California rolls while dreaming I was devouring a double bacon cheeseburger instead. 

But it wasn’t the food I cared about—it was the company. In fact, sitting across from Jarrod at Hiko Sushi felt much like being on the road again. The restaurant’s simple, intimate nature reminded me of the many secluded bars we’d ended up in late at night, desperate for a few moments alone without the risk of anybody finding us. The sense of déjà vu was startling but not unpleasant as we chatted in a dimly-lit corner over beers and shrimp tempura.

He didn’t mention the breakdown I’d nearly had in his living room, and I didn’t mention his new tattoo, but we made up for all that we didn’t say by falling into an easy, comfortable conversation that was broken only when I dropped one of my chopsticks, the small wooden utensil landing in the middle of his plate with a clatter.

“Sorry.” 

My fingers grazed his while reaching out to grab the chopstick, and I blushed. The contact had been purely accidental on my part, a hazard of my usual clumsiness, but Jarrod merely smirked. I had a feeling that the way his leg kept brushing mine beneath the table wasn’t a mistake at all.

Maybe it was Jarrod’s zen-like presence that mellowed me out, or maybe it was something to do with the three beers I’d had that evening. Either way, by the time we were done with our meal, the stress and guilt that had been eating away at me earlier had been pushed to the very outskirts of my mind. was proud of myself not only for limiting my alcohol intake to avoid turning into a drunken mess, but for keeping my hormones in check, resisting the urge to touch his hair, his cheek, his slender neck. But my conscience was still alive and kicking all the same, urging me to stop while I was ahead. 

“Want to come in for a few minutes?” Jarrod asked without turning around as he pushed the key into the lock. “There’s a song I’ve been working on, and it’s giving me hell. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.”

“The offer’s tempting, but I should probably get back." The disappointment in my voice was an echo of his own, evidenced by the way his shoulders slumped, his hand paused around the doorknob.

And then, I saw it again: that tiny lightning bolt, the blazing yellow ink glowing through the darkness all around us.

“Why a lightning bolt?”

I didn’t expect him to answer my impromptu question. He tended to be pretty tight-lipped when it came to his body art, and I had a difficult time believing he’d suddenly open up to me now.

But to my surprise, he turned to face me, and I caught a hint of sad longing in his eyes. I recognized it because it was exactly what I felt whenever I thought about him, or Alex, or anyone else I’d had no choice but to let slip away.

“Some people flash into your life like lightning, and they’re gone just as fast.” His voice was unbearably quiet, but the intensity of his eyes grew louder with each passing second. “I guess this is my way of holding onto them.”

I was rendered weak and helpless, mesmerized by the dark light in his eyes and the way they continued to speak even when his mouth stopped moving.

And before I could talk myself out of it, I closed my eyes and kissed him.


	19. Broken Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Wish I could be a fragile piece of glass to accept my brokenness.” – Munia Khan._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you get to the [song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tug09NvrnWI) referenced in this chapter, you might want to play it in the background.

My hand was on Jarrod’s arm, fingertips pressing into his tattoo as we stumbled into his apartment. I wasn’t even drunk, but my head was spinning, my senses at once clouded and heightened like I was under the influence of something.

And maybe I was. 

It had been my idea to start things up with Jarrod on tour, but although I had pursued him with steadfast persistence, the tables turned shortly thereafter and I lost the sense of power I had always believed myself to possess. Night after night, I surrendered not only my body, but my heart to him as his voice soothed me, as his mouth found mine in the darkness. 

I realized too late that it was happening all over again. While I had boldly initiated the kiss, lost in the symbol etched into his skin and the meaning that bled from the surface to within, it wasn’t long before I was vulnerable and defenseless, my back against the wall as I inhaled his labored breaths.

“You taste just like I remember,” he murmured, his palm flat against my chest like he was trying to feel my heartbeat.

He didn’t have to get that close to feel it, though. It echoed through the space between us, a reminder of the ways we made each other tick. His fingers crept beneath my shirt, raking across my bare skin and I groaned, my head connecting with the wall with a force that should have hurt but didn’t.

“So, that song you were telling me about…” I managed to gasp out between fevered kisses. 

“Want to hear it?” 

“Yeah,” I breathed as he trailed his lips along my jawline.

He flicked the light switch behind my head with his free hand and moved away from me slowly, like he was almost afraid to let me go. As the distance between us increased, so did the guilt. My past had a way of sneaking up on me and announcing itself like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head without warning. But unlike water, which inevitably faded without leaving behind any real damage, the skeletons in my closet were made of flesh and blood and bones and were immune to the passing of time. 

Jarrod straddled the arm of the couch and strummed a few soft chords on the vintage guitar propped up on his thigh, his simple motions propelling me back in time to those endless afternoons when I used to watch him sing. He had been so guarded at first, so unwilling to let me in, but I eventually wore him down and convinced him to share his entire repertoire of songs with me, even the ones he didn’t feel comfortable performing onstage. During that brief leg of the tour when we were practically inseparable, I got to know the most intimate parts of him. 

But I knew from the very first note that I had never heard this particular song before. His eyes searched mine, seeking permission to begin, and I nodded in feigned confidence. 

The song opened with a series of hums, the wordless sounds gaining power and volume until they struck the air like a dying man’s pleas to stay alive. Strands of dark hair fell into his eyes, but he barely seemed to notice the intrusion. He was somewhere else entirely now, a place that was both dangerous and safe, and I felt compelled to follow him there.

_One day you woke up ten years older  
Taken prisoner like a soldier  
You left your home for what seemed noble  
Give anything to do it over_

_Alone now, there must be some other way  
To control how your anger turns into rage_

_Cause I know, I know life's so unfair  
We used to escape under the brilliant glare  
It's the high that conquered you  
Stole the soul from the friend that we knew_

_Well everyday it's something else  
Divert the blame from yourself  
Cause you can never do wrong  
Feels so good to be alone now_

_For too long now you've been misunderstood  
All alone now, go and save yourself_

_Cause I know, I know life's so unfair  
We used to escape under the brilliant glare  
It's the high that conquered you  
Stole the soul from the friend that we knew  
Stole the soul from the friend that we knew  
Stole the soul from the friend that we knew  
Stole the soul from the friend that we knew  
Stole the soul…_

The song only lasted for a handful of minutes at most, but it sent me through a decade’s worth of tangled emotions. I saw my pale cheeks and wide, fearful eyes as I approached the altar on my wedding day. (As I took Natalie’s hands and echoed our rehearsed vows—the words sitting on my tongue like lead, like chalky medicine for an illness I had shown all the right symptoms for but didn’t truly have—I knew that her soft, silky skin could never compare to the way Zac’s rough, calloused finger pads felt against mine.) I relived the bittersweet births of my beautiful children, each new addition to my family healing my heart and breaking it at the very same time. I remembered what it was like to lose myself in the arms and lips and words of someone else, because I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that Zac would ever return my true feelings. 

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I woke up gasping, feeling like someone was trying to steal every last shred of life from my body, and I then retreated into the living room where I spent the next several hours cradling a bottle of gin in my arms while waiting for daylight to come. I was so fucking depressed—on the verge of destruction, really—all the while pretending to be the happiest, luckiest man alive. 

Regret wasn’t something I let myself feel on most days, but right then I was drowning in it. Battling those painful memories was just like staring into a haunting self-portrait where I was locked in a lonely jail cell, the background painted with acts of confused deceit and lies I’d lived along the way. 

When Jarrod finished singing, he rested the guitar against the coffee table with a sigh. He usually looked positively euphoric after a performance, as did I, but this time, neither one of us was smiling. The worried lines on his face begged for a reaction, but I merely leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes instead of saying anything. 

After all, what was I supposed to say? Did he want me to thank him for learning the aching truths of my heart and writing them into a song? Did he want me to say that he was right, that I was a jaded, soulless shadow of a man who wasted the last ten years of his life making nothing but mistakes? Did he want me to hang my head in shame and admit the depths of my own self-loathing? 

I suddenly didn’t care to find out. Without speaking, I opened my eyes and moved toward the door in a daze. Tears shook against my eyelashes like raindrops waiting to be set free from a stormcloud, but I blinked them away. The L.A. night swept me up in its familiar embrace, inviting me into its sleepless flurry of noise and ceaseless motion, but all I could hear was Jarrod’s voice reminding me of who I had become. 

And all I could think about was how far I was from home.

I was just a few steps away from my car in the parking lot when I was hit with the overwhelming urge to call Zac. Why had I ever wasted my time with people who saw me through a filtered lens? Either I was too broken and they wanted to fix me, or I was too perfect and they resented me for it. But Zac knew that I was strong enough to stand on my own two feet, and he also knew that I was far from a flawless being. He accepted me for all that I was (and even all that I wasn’t). He was the only person in the world who loved me without judgment.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, waiting for my hands to stop shaking, and then I made the call. The rings were far more shrill and piercing than usual, the space between them seeming to last for miniature eternities.

“Hello?” 

My eyes popped open at the sound of a gruff voice that was nothing like my brother’s. I pulled the phone away from my ear with a frown, figuring that in my emotional state, I had stupidly managed to dial the wrong person. But when Zac’s name stared up at me from the small screen, confirming that I had indeed called him, I was seized by a wave of nausea.

“ _Alex_?”

“Hey, Tay. If you need to talk to Zac, well… now’s probably not a good time.” 

Alex’s words were quiet and slightly muffled, like he had his hand cupped around the receiver to limit the amount of noise that escaped. What the hell was going on?

“What does that even mean? Are you with him right now? Is he okay?” The questions left my mouth in a breathless tumble. “Let me talk to him, will you?”

His heavy sigh weighed me down as well, and I had to stop myself from sinking to the ground right there in the parking lot. 

“Yes, I’m with him, and he’s fine… well, he _will_ be fine.” There was a brief pause. “But do you think you can find somewhere to stay tonight instead of coming back to the hotel?” 

_What?_ “What?”

“He, uh… he doesn’t really want to see you right now. I’m sorry,” Alex was quick to add, his voice distant and strained, like he was reading from a script and had to remember to separate himself from the character he was supposed to play. “Listen, I’ll explain everything tomorrow, okay? But right now, I need to go. Goodnight, Taylor.”

I wasn’t able to respond because the dial tone cut in like a knife and sliced through my very last shred of sanity. And before rational thought crept in and stopped me, I lifted the hand still holding my cell phone and smashed it through the driver’s side window of the rental car. The glass trembled and cracked into pieces, scattering at my feet like bits of fallen stars. Hints of blue moonlight washed over the broken shards, and in the largest slab I caught Jarrod’s reflection. I felt his presence moments later—a gentle hand on my shoulder, a tickle of warm breath against the back of my neck. They were the smallest signs of comfort, but in that moment, they were the only lifelines I had. I didn’t even notice I was crying or bleeding until I grabbed a fistful of Jarrod’s t-shirt and realized that it was stained dark crimson, soaked through with traces of my sadness.

“Come on, let’s go back inside.” His tone was measured, patient, and kind, the way an experienced nurse might speak to a helpless child.

“But… I need… I can’t…” 

My feeble protests faded into silence as I gazed into the misshapen fragments, my tears blurring our separate reflections into one. Blood dripped down, mixing in with the salty droplets that fell from my eyes, but I didn’t even feel the pain. 

“Don’t worry about the car,” he whispered, smoothing a hand across my hair and placing the other one on the small of my back. “We need to take care of your hand.”

He was forceful but still incredibly gentle somehow as he guided me back into his apartment, his footsteps surrounding mine and letting me know that I wasn’t alone. All the while, I tried to keep my eyes focused on what was in front of me instead of the terrible mess I had left behind.


	20. A Lack of Color

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Look at this mess! And where’s the mop?” - Ray Bradbury._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Click [here](https://youtu.be/jduFDgIr598) to listen to the song referenced in this chapter.

Most of the time, I liked to pretend that I was invincible. 

Wearing a smile laced with false confidence and surface charm was somehow much easier than letting the world know just how unhappy I was. But beneath that trained act of happiness, I was barely holding it together, and Zac was the only one who knew it. When I was with him, I didn’t mind breaking, because I secretly loved being put back together by his soft kisses, his reassuring words, his strong and certain hands. In fact, it was oddly comforting to fall apart in his embrace.

But Zac wasn’t the one who was touching me now, wiping away the bloodstains that I didn’t have the stomach or the energy to attend to. He wasn’t the one who tried to take my mind off of the pain by cracking jokes as he cleaned me up ( _You don’t really need your right hand anyway, do you?_ ). And he wasn’t the one who picked up the phone and dialed Isaac, the lies flowing from his lips with ease. _Hey Ike, it’s Jarrod… Yeah, man, I’m living out here now… I know, it’s been awhile, but things are alright… Some asshole tried to break into your rental car and busted a hole through one of the windows… Taylor’s fine—he just had a bit too much to drink and is gonna crash here tonight…_

No, it was Jarrod who did all of those things. And I was almost ashamed for letting my guard down, for letting him see how weak and helpless I was, but at the same time, it was a relief to finally allow someone else to take care of me.

 _Leave it to Jarrod to keep a stash of gauze on hand_ , I thought with a tug of fondness as I studied my taped-up arm.

The jagged glass had sliced stripes into my knuckles and wrist, and while some wounds were much worse than others, none were as deep as the hole in my heart. I grew dizzy with nausea as I recalled Alex’s words, playing the conversation over and over again in my mind until I made myself sick. I leaned over the toilet and heaved several times, but nothing came up, because I had absolutely nothing to give.

I was empty.

Jarrod found me on the bathroom floor, my back pressed against the bathtub as I stared at the dazzling light fixture dangling from the ceiling. I wanted it to sear right through me and bring me back to life again, but all it did was flicker before dimming a little, reminding me that everything fades if you give it enough time.

“Here, drink this.” He pushed a mug into my uninjured hand and slid down onto the marbled tile beside me. 

I had always admired Jarrod’s quiet intuition, but in that moment, I was positively thankful for it. A long silence lapsed between us as I sipped from what was evidently a cocktail of hot tea and liquor. After awhile, his hand came to rest on my leg, his eyes holding equal parts sympathy and remorse.

“I shouldn’t have played that song for you. It’s your life, not mine, and I really don’t understand it, so I shouldn’t have pretended to,” he said, shaking a stray lock of hair from his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay… this definitely isn’t your fault.” 

After glancing down at my bandaged wrist again for another agonizing second, I swirled the tinted liquid around, watching little whirlpools appear and then disband before my eyes. I too felt like I was caught in an endless cycle, spinning in a self-made web from which there was no escape. 

“I think I just lost the only person who ever gave a damn about me,” I spoke sullenly.

Jarrod smiled faintly, realizing that I had just used the same line he had spoken to me on the night of our first kiss. But the look of nostalgia was fleeting, disappearing beneath the shadows that fell across his eyes a moment later. He scooted in toward me, giving my knee a gentle squeeze, and I breathed in the subtle, spicy hint of his cologne.

“I’m sure whatever it is, you and Natalie will be able to weather through it. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you?” 

“This isn’t about my wife,” I admitted uncomfortably, the words souring as soon as they hit the air, causing us both to flinch.

“Oh.” He released his grip on my leg then, his tone reflecting surprise but also a certain note of acceptance, like perhaps he had suspected something like this all along.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore, Jar. My life is such a fucking mess.”

He coaxed the mug out of my unsteady grip and placed it on the floor before wrapping his arms around me. 

“You’ll get through this, Taylor,” he whispered into my hair. “You’re nothing if not a survivor.”

As I clung to his thin but solid frame, I closed my eyes and prayed that he was right.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I was terrible at falling asleep in unfamiliar places, and Jarrod’s bed was no exception. The sheets were cool and clean and smelled distinctly of him, but I felt lost and anxious inside of them.

Lost and anxious and _alone_.

Lately, when I had trouble sleeping on tour, I was used to Zac coming to my rescue. He secured his arms around my waist and combed his fingers through my hair, the ministrations soothing and soporific, more pleasing and effective than any drug. I couldn’t count the number of times he had sacrificed a perfectly good night of sleep to cater to my insufferable insomnia. The thought brought on a stinging wave of tears and I held my breath in the darkness, refusing to let it overwhelm me.

“Get some rest. I’ll be fine,” I maintained time and again, feeling heavy with guilt whenever I noticed my brother’s bloodshot eyes or caught him suppressing a yawn. I hated watching him suffer.

“No. I’d much rather stay awake with you,” he always answered stubbornly, scratching gently at my scalp with his practiced fingers. 

On the rare occasions when that tactic failed to lure me into slumber, Zac decided to wear me out instead. Sometimes, we got so lost in each other that we didn’t emerge from our heated embrace until the first hints of morning light struck the window. It was so easy to lose track of time when I was with him—but just how many seconds, minutes, and hours of his love had I foolishly taken for granted? 

I wasn’t the least bit shocked when I felt Jarrod shift on the mattress beside me. I had been flipping about like a fish out of water for the last several hours; it was no wonder that my restlessness had kept him up as well.

“You okay?” he asked, tracing small circles on the flushed skin of my back.

I merely sighed again and shook my head. When he leaned in and enveloped me with his body heat, I didn’t protest. It was nice to be held, even though the arms around me belonged to the wrong person. I rested my cheek against his chest and listened to his heartbeat, trying to calm my own heart’s wild and agitated rhythm.

“You know how earlier, you said you lost the only person who ever gave a damn about you?” Although his lips were pressed to my ear, the question was so soft it almost got carried away by the distant hum of traffic.

“Yeah?”

“You were wrong,” he whispered, placing a kiss on the corner of my mouth. “I’m still here.”

*** * * * * * * * * ***

A few short hours later, the unmistakable aroma of bacon drifted toward me and pried my eyelids open. 

“How’s your hand?” Jarrod greeted me, appearing in the doorway with two steaming cups of coffee.

I shrugged off his question and diverted my attention to the bedside table, where there sat a plate practically overflowing with eggs, bacon, toast and fruit. 

“Did you make all of this?” I asked, my eyes wide.

Jarrod’s cheeks grew red as he crossed the room and handed me the larger cup of coffee.

“Well, I’ve always loved to cook, but I don’t do it much anymore. I hate cooking when it’s just me,” he remarked, settling into the nest of blankets beside me and crossing his legs at the ankles. “Don’t feel obligated to eat all of it, though. I know I went a little overboard.”

Although my stomach was still in knots from the night before, I forced myself to eat, tucking away a forkful of eggs, a few bites of toast, and two bacon strips before I reached my feeble limit. Despite the fact that I wasn’t very hungry, every bit of the meal was cooked to perfection. I briefly recalled Jarrod mentioning during one of our late-night trysts that if his career in music didn’t work out, then he wanted to look into attending culinary school.

“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” Jarrod inquired, snatching a piece of bacon from the plate resting in my lap and chewing it thoughtfully.

“I should probably head back to the hotel pretty soon,” I confessed, the thought of facing Zac officially killing what was left of my barely existent appetite.

“Okay. You know there’s no rush to leave, though, right? I mean… last night didn’t exactly go as planned, and I’d like to spend more time with you.”

“I’d like that, too, but there’s something I really need to take care of,” I said firmly. “I can’t afford to screw this up.”

He simply nodded and covered my hand with his like he was placing a lid on the conversation. Then, he lifted the plate from my lap and exited the room without another word. 

I took a quick shower, careful to keep my right hand out of the water’s harsh spray. I toweled my hair dry and rubbed a fingerful of toothpaste along my teeth before throwing on my jeans and the plain red t-shirt that Jarrod insisted I wear.

“It looks much better on you, anyway. Trust me,” he observed, and I couldn’t help blushing as his gaze lingered on the muscles along my chest and biceps.

The drive back to the hotel was quiet, save for the music coming softly through the speakers. It was a song by one of Jarrod’s favorite bands, and he’d played it for me so many times that I still knew the words by heart. I sang along silently, the familiar chords pulling at something inside of me that had been asleep for quite some time, like most bittersweet memories do.

_And when I see you, I really see you upside down  
But my brain knows better, it picks you up and turns you around  
Turns you around, turns you around_

_If you feel discouraged that there's a lack of color here  
Please don't worry, lover, it's really bursting at the seams  
For absorbing everything, the spectrum's A to Z_

_This is fact not fiction for the first time in years  
All the girls in every girlie magazine can't make me feel any less alone  
I'm reaching for the phone_

Jarrod slowed to a stop in the parking lot beside the entrance, and I unsnapped my seatbelt but remained in the car, waiting for the song to end. He sang the last few lines like his heart had invented them—the wistful sadness in his voice made me ache. 

_But I know it's too late, I should have given you a reason to stay  
Given you a reason to stay…  
Given you a reason to stay…  
Given you a reason to stay…_

As I climbed out of the car without saying goodbye, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that if things weren’t so damn complicated—and if I weren’t already completely wrapped up in someone else—then I would have stayed.


	21. Leaving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?” – Jonathan Safran Foer._

I stood by the door of the room for an embarrassing amount of time before opening it.

Like I had ripped the bandage from my recent wounds upon entering the hotel lobby without giving myself time to flinch, it would have been easier to barge into the room without a second thought. But when had anything in my life ever been _easy_?

I rubbed the skin along my tender wrist as my thoughts spun on endlessly, like a record stuck on repeat at the absolute highest setting. The pain inside was deafening and still ringing in my ears when I eventually inserted the keycard and closed my eyes, bracing myself for the worst.

But instead of finding Zac and Alex locked in some sort of passionate, erotic embrace, the scene I was met with was serene and innocent. Somehow, though, that made it even worse. They looked entirely at ease, their bodies pressed together beneath the sheets as their chests rose and fell in quiet discord. Alex’s hand rested on my brother’s shoulder, like he had fallen asleep in the midst of calming him.

They both appeared to be fast asleep, so I was shocked when Alex immediately stirred and sat up, his eyes piercing mine. His gaze was filled with shadows at first, but they cleared away in a few moments’ time, and it was then I saw a startling depth of emotion inside that I didn’t quite recognize. 

“Hey,” he croaked out, running a hand through his sleep-knotted locks. The motion caused the sheet to fall away and reveal his bare chest. It was a sight that might have aroused me just a few short days ago, but in that moment, I was filled with nothing but a mixture of sadness and bitter guilt.

“Hey,” I answered glumly, shifting my eyes from his body to the sleeping frame beside him. 

With each slow breath that Zac exhaled, his long lashes trembled slightly against his cheekbones, and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and trace a line from his temples to his jawline, then back up again to his perfect lips. But how could I touch him when he didn’t even want to _talk_ to me?

I remained frozen by the bedside for what felt like forever until Alex finally climbed out of bed, his actions uncharacteristically gentle so as not to disturb Zac. He threw on the Led Zeppelin t-shirt on the floor that definitely belonged to my brother, not him, but I didn’t point out the mistake. It was probably an intentional move on his part, anyway.

He gathered up his scattered belongings, stuffed them into the pockets of his jeans, and then gestured me into the hallway. As I followed, I still felt like I was trapped in a nightmare that I would surely awaken from soon. I still couldn’t fathom that any of this was real.

Once we were alone, Alex stepped toward me and settled his left hand over my right, his typical shit-eating grin replaced with a look of knowing sympathy.

“What happened to you last night?” he asked softly, his eyes stuck to the bloodshot veins that marked my skin like blue-black ink.

“Not important,” I murmured with a shake of my head. “Just tell me what’s going on with Zac.”

Alex released my hand slowly before sucking in a breath. It appeared that he was trying to calm himself down for some reason, but in doing so, he was only making my anxiety worse.

“I figured you wouldn’t answer if I called, so I decided to drop by last night to invite you guys to dinner. I know your time in L.A. is running out, and who knows when you’ll be back again, and I just wanted to say a proper goodbye to you for once. I was hoping it could be a civilized outing… that it could even be fun,” he said, his crooked smile soon collapsing into a frown. 

“Anyway…” The sigh that left his mouth rattled my bones like a raw gust of wind. “As it turned out, you weren’t here and Zac was… well, he was quickly approaching the blackout stage of drunkenness, for lack of a better term.”

As he spoke, I inched backward until the backs of my legs hit the wall. I no longer trusted myself to stay upright on my own. 

“He was completely incoherent at first—I don’t even think he recognized me. I tried to calm him down, but it was useless; I’m sure you know how damn stubborn he is. But when I finally said that I was going to call you, it was like I’d flipped a switch inside of him, and he freaked out and pinned me to the bed.”

I swallowed thickly, my eyes wide.

“Don’t worry, Tay. Nothing happened,” he said, placing his hand on my arm again. “I still have _some_ morals left, believe it or not.”

I rolled my eyes and shook it away, prompting him to continue.

“So I wrestled him off of me and suggested that we watch a movie—in the hopes that it would mellow him out—but that idea only made him even more crazy. And that was when the truth came out. Apparently, after you left to meet up with Jarrod, he turned on your laptop with the intention of watching a movie until you came back, but he got distracted by looking through old pictures instead. And… well, he stumbled upon some very, uh, graphic photos of you and Jarrod that I guess he'd never seen before.”

 _Fuck_ , I swore silently, my knees buckling. 

The pictures Alex was referring to hadn’t crossed my mind in quite some time. I had meant to delete them from my catalog of photos immediately after they were taken, but the snowballing madness of my life prevented me from remembering that they even existed. They were the result of a foolish, drunken night when Jarrod had confessed to being camera-shy and I had decided to coax him out of his shell. Before long, our clothes were shed and our poses transformed from images of smiling innocence to snapshots that were borderline pornographic. Needless to say, I hadn’t planned on anyone else ever laying eyes on those pictures—especially Zac.

“God, he probably hates me,” I mumbled, sliding down to the carpeted floor of the hallway.

“Hates you? Are you kidding me? The kid fucking loves you, Tay,” he said, sinking to the ground beside me. “But I think you’ve really been messing with his head, without even meaning to.”

I nodded mutely, knowing that he was right.

“And I really am sorry for keeping you away last night, but he was such a mess. I figured I needed to at least let him sleep it off.”

“No, you did the right thing,” I replied weakly. “He hasn’t been drinking much these days, so I’m sure it hit him pretty hard. I just hate that I was the cause of it.”

Alex leaned in and gave my thigh a small squeeze. And unlike so many of the other touches that had passed between us recently, it felt like a purely platonic gesture. The sensation I was left with was oddly bittersweet, like I was in the midst of losing something I didn’t even know I’d had. 

“Well, I should get back to my place. Band practice’s in an hour. I wasn’t really anticipating spending the night last night, but duty called…”

We both stood up, and I watched him rock back and forth on his heels in evident contemplation. Was he going to hug me? Kiss me? Give me a handshake? What was a ‘proper’ way to say goodbye, anyway? In my twenty-nine years of living, I hadn’t yet figured it out.

“Thanks for looking out for him,” I finally said.

“Hey, if I can’t have you, then I have no complaints about sharing a bed with the next best thing.”

When he threw me a flirtatious little wink, I was almost relieved to see that at his core, he was still the same old Alex. That at least some things never changed.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Zac was awake when I reentered the room, his gaze fixed on the narrow bands of light that striped the curtained window. His hair was tucked behind his ears, and his eyes were dark and sad. I lowered myself onto the bed beside him, careful to keep my distance but desperate to feel some of his body heat. 

“How’re you feeling?” I asked lamely.

“I’ve been better.”

As he moved toward me slightly, a few locks of hair fell into his face and I instinctively lifted my hand up to brush them away, only to stop myself just seconds before my fingertips met his soft cheek. I cast my eyes downward and fiddled with the empty space between the third and fourth fingers of my left hand, where my wedding band should have been but wasn’t.

“I’m such an idiot,” I whispered, looking up again.

“No, you’re not an idiot,” he replied in a slow and measured tone, staring directly into my eyes. “But you _are_ a liar.”

I leaned my head against the wall and exhaled loudly, feeling like he had knocked the wind out of me although he hadn’t even touched me. 

“Zac, I swear, I didn’t even remember that I still had those pictures.”

“It’s not about the damn pictures, Taylor!” he cried, the venom in his voice stealing the rest of my words from my lungs. “It doesn’t bother me that you took them. What bothers me is that you’re with me when you’re clearly not over _him_.”

I pursed my lips together and studied him, watching the lines on his face crease every single time he breathed. The wrinkles I saw there shocked me almost as much as his accusation. When had he gotten so _old_?

“I would do anything for you. Fuck, I would have a fucking threesome with Alex Greenwald if you asked me to. But I can’t live like this. It’s like I never know what the truth is anymore.”

“The truth is that I love you.”

“But is that the whole truth? Can you honestly tell me that you are 100% done with Jarrod? Because if you are, then I have a feeling you would have told me about him, but instead you kept it all to yourself, like some dirty little secret.”

“C’mon, it’s not like that,” I protested. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry about anything happening between us.”

“Well, did it?” he shot back.

I reached for his arm, but he pulled away quickly.

“Did anything happen when you met up with him last night?” he repeated, the smallness of his voice making me ache.

“Yes. I kissed him,” I admitted quietly. “But that was all. I promise.”

All of a sudden, he grabbed my right hand and pressed his thumb into the grooves of my sore knuckles. It burned like hell, but I barely registered the feeling. 

“Just the other day, when you found out Nat was pregnant, you promised me that you wanted me and only me. But do you know what I realized last night?” He danced his fingers along my mottled skin, his eyes still locked with mine.

“Your promises are empty, Taylor. They don’t mean anything.”

And with that, he let go of my hand and stood up, crossing the room with an air of renewed determination. He began sifting through the messes he had made in various areas of the room, separating his things from mine like a couple dividing their shares in a divorce.

“Where are you going?”

“To stay with Ike.”

“So that’s it, then?” I challenged. “You’re just going to give up on us?”

The heavy sigh he expelled was a good enough answer for me, making him seem so much older than twenty-six. As for me? I may as well have been fifty.

“You know what? Don’t bother leaving,” I said flatly. “I’ll go.”

I don’t remember packing my bag. I don’t remember crying. What I do remember, though, is feeling like every last shred of life was being squeezed from my body as I sat on the curb with my elbows on my tear-stained knees, waiting for a cab to pick me up and take me back to Jarrod’s apartment.


	22. Ballgame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.” – William James._

“Come on, you can do better than that!” Jarrod called over his shoulder, brushing a few sweaty strands of hair from his forehead.

“I’m not usually a lefty. You do realize that, right?” I mumbled as I tightened my grip on the racket with my non-dominant hand and made another halfhearted attempt to serve the ball.

“Well, hey, at least you managed to hit it in the general direction of the wall this time,” he said encouragingly (albeit a bit mockingly as well). 

“Very funny,” I replied, punctuating my statement by a forceful swing that sent the ball flying up toward the ceiling and back down again.

I’ll be the first to admit that organized sports aren’t really my thing. But when I arrived at Jarrod’s apartment, bag in hand, he had opened the door wearing a pair of basketball shorts, a tank top, and a yellow sweatband, which led me to conclude the following: either he had adopted a bizarre and very un-Jarrod-like fashion sense since I had last see him a few short hours ago, or he was dressed for the gym. The look of concern that flooded his eyes when he let me in told me that he would have erased whatever he had planned for the day in order to cater to my needs, but in that moment, I didn’t need to be taken care of. I didn’t need to feel any more weak and helpless than I did already. 

No. What I needed was a distraction. 

So I accompanied him to the local athletic club he belonged to and somehow got roped into playing a game of racquetball. Despite the fact that my right hand was useless and he was absolutely destroying me, I had to admit that it felt good to let out some of my pent-up frustration and anxiety. Each time the ball slammed decisively into the surrounding walls, I was able to place some distance between myself and the mess that my life had become.

After Jarrod claimed his easy 15-0 victory, he proposed a spontaneous trip to the beach. The cool sand sifting gently through my toes and the light wind whipping my hair around my head should have put me at ease, but instead, I was reminded of Zac and how we had walked along that very same ocean mere days ago.

 _Has it really only been just a few days?_ I thought with a start. It felt more like years.

Jarrod must have sensed that I didn’t feel much like talking, because he didn’t even try to strike up a conversation as we trekked across the nearly deserted strip. And while half of me was grateful for the silence, the other half was terrified of being left alone with my thoughts for any length of time. If I had wanted to be alone, then I never would have appeared on Jarrod’s doorstep in the first place.

Without warning, he flung his sweatshirt onto the sand, causing me to stop abruptly in my tracks and lift my eyebrows in an unspoken question. When the rest of his belongings landed in a scattered pile on top of his hoodie—including his cell phone, wallet, keys, and ultimately, his tank top—I finally understood exactly what he was planning to do. 

“Anything valuable in your pockets?”

“No,” I replied after feeling through them absently, vaguely recalling having set my wallet on the coffee table before we had left for the gym.

I hardly ever went anywhere without my phone, my camera, and at least one form of ID—but my phone was as good as dead, my camera had suddenly become a very sore subject, and I really didn’t care to be reminded of who I was and what it meant.

“Good.”

Before I even had time to blink, he was grabbing my arm and dragging me toward the rising pillars of waves. I wasn’t in the mood to go swimming and tried to protest, but I quickly realized that it was pointless to put up a fight. He had already proven that despite his unassuming frame, he was much more physically capable than I was.

A wave broke over my head, giving me no choice but to duck and let it carry me. When I eventually returned to the surface, I opened my mouth to shout a playful “fuck you!” at him but wound up choking on a mouthful of saltwater instead. I sounded ridiculous, and when Jarrod fell into a fit of laughter by my side, I felt my lips turn up into a grin. I had seen my children do the very same thing on family trips to the beach too many times to count; now I knew without a doubt where they had learned it from.

The late afternoon sun changed colors in the sky as we floated along with the lazy current, exchanging no more than a few words at a time. The water grew colder as the hours wore on, and while the chill drove straight into my bones and made me shiver, I was far too comfortable to consider making my way back toward land. When the first hints of dusk spackled the sky like tiny flecks of dark-blue paint, Jarrod moved in closer and wrapped his arms around my waist, providing a warmth I hadn’t realized that I had been craving. His fingers brushed along the gooseflesh on my biceps, his legs tangling with mine beneath the surface of the water.

“Hey!” I cried out, my eyes watering as he tugged on my hair, none too gently.

“Sorry,” he said, still pulling roughly at the roots. “I know how much you love to accessorize, but this really isn’t a good look on you. Trust me.”

Chuckling, he unearthed a thick, bulbous line of seaweed from my matted locks and tossed it far behind him. With the offending object out of the way, he returned his attention to my hair and began sifting through the water-logged strands much more tenderly this time, his every motion slow and calming. I bit back a groan of pleasure as his fingers moved to my neck and worked through the knotted ribbons of muscle. 

“Hey, Jar?” I asked softly.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

He replied by pressing a kiss to the back of my neck where his hands had been. And when his lips found mine just a few seconds later, I realized that he had timed the kiss perfectly. I tasted him at the very same moment that a wave rose up behind us and invited us into its swelling, seafoam embrace.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

As we dried off on a makeshift bed of sweatshirts on the sand, I closed my eyes and thought about how easy it was to fall into old habits. I’d been certain that the kiss we had shared the night before had been our last for a long, long time—possibly forever—but then again, I had been falsely certain about a lot of things lately, including the idea that Zac loved me enough to hear my side of the story without shutting me out or running away.

 _But he didn’t run away. **You** did_ , my conscience reminded me.

The smell of a freshly lit cigarette prodded my eyelids open, and I watched on in envy as Jarrod blew little puffs of smoke toward the sky. Without even waiting for an offer, I leaned down, placed my lips against the thin stick between his fingers and took a long, grateful drag. His eyes widened in surprise, but he said nothing as I continued to circulate the toxic air through my lungs like I was trying to simultaneously hold onto and rid myself of the same disease.

When I closed my eyes again, I felt him press the cigarette into my hand, securing my fingers around it in a loose fist.

“Here, take it. You look like you need it a hell of a lot more than I do.”

I finished it off silently, my eyes following a flock of birds moving purposefully through the clouds. When the wind picked up, Jarrod arranged his hoodie across both of us like a blanket and leaned in to lend me some of his body heat.

“Ready to head back?” he asked.

“Not just yet.”

I breathed in deeply, thankful for this stolen moment of peace in an otherwise crowded city. In an otherwise crowded life. 

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I tried to ignore how lonely I was as I stood beneath the shower’s harsh spray and scrubbed every last trace of smoke, sweat, and sand from my body. I had already grown accustomed to sharing a cramped shower stall with Zac whenever the opportunity arose. If I concentrated hard enough, I could almost feel his hands on my skin, his breath a hot whisper against the curve of my collarbone. The thought of him sent a stabbing jolt of pain through my chest, reminding me just how bad the damage was.

He was right—I should have been honest with him about Jarrod from the very start. Clearly, I was wrong in trying to protect him by shielding him from that uncovered piece of my past. But now that he knew the truth, he apparently saw me as nothing but a liar who filled his head and heart with empty promises. He hadn’t even allowed me to explain before pushing me away… before giving up. And maybe that was precisely the treatment I deserved—hell, maybe I didn’t deserve him at all. But didn’t he trust me enough to understand that I would never do _anything_ with the intention of hurting him?

Zac wasn’t just my brother, lover, and band mate—he was my best friend. He knew me more intimately and in more ways than anyone else in the world. So how had we fallen into a place where we felt more comfortable confiding in other people than in each other?

I flicked off the water with a sigh and stepped out into the haze of vaporous steam, thankful that it fogged up the mirror so that I couldn’t see my reflection. I was so tired of looking into the depths of my own tired eyes and asking myself questions that I had no answers to.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Once we had both cleaned up and changed into fresh clothes, we went out for pizza. Jarrod had offered to cook, but after the lavish breakfast he had gone to the trouble of making that morning (which I had barely touched), I argued that I owed him one.

Realistically, I knew that I owed him far more than just a dinner. He had gone above and beyond the call of duty, even taking it upon himself to deal with the broken rental car that I had selfishly left behind in the parking lot of his apartment complex. 

We ended up in a cozy corner booth at a family-owned pizzeria within walking distance of his place. And while my stomach was still in knots from the events of the last twenty-four hours, my body reacted instinctively to the mouthwatering aromas wafting from the kitchen, and it wasn’t long before I had devoured half of the large pepperoni pie that we’d decided to split.

When I paused for a much-needed sip of my drink, I noticed that Jarrod hadn’t even glanced at the slice of pizza on his plate. Not only that, but he was making steady progress on his third beer, whereas I hadn’t even finished my first.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my grease-laden napkin and pushed my empty plate aside, focusing my attention on his eyes that suddenly looked so dark and heavy, shadowed by the weight of something.

“What’s up?” I asked. “I thought you said you love the food here.”

“I do love it," he began quietly. "But…”

He tore his eyes from mine and took a loud gulp of beer, studying the rim of the tumbler intently instead of meeting my curious gaze.

“But?” I coaxed the glass from his viselike grip and prompted him to look at me.

He breathed out a soft sigh.

“…But I also love you.”


	23. Strangeland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” – Douglas Adams._

Over the years, I had grown accustomed to having people express their undying love for me in all sorts of various ways. When fans and even casual acquaintances told me that they loved me, I usually just smiled and brushed the comment aside as nicely as I could, knowing that they only loved the _idea_ of me. That they were infatuated with the image of the passionate man holding the microphone, or the memories of the long-haired prettyboy I used to be. 

But hearing the phrase “I love you” escape Jarrod’s lips was very different from the thousands of times I’d heard it from people in passing. There was a deep meaning there that I couldn’t possibly ignore; it was written all over his face. 

_Say something,_ I urged myself, but no words came. 

When I failed to respond, he tore his eyes and hand away from mine and flagged down the waitress as soon as she turned to approach the table. He handed over his credit card without even waiting to find out what we owed, apparently having chosen to disregard the fact that I had already insisted on paying for our meal. Then, he busied himself with arranging his untouched half of the pizza in the box before slamming the cardboard lid.

“Jarrod, I…” I began feebly.

“Just drop it,” he cut me off softly, drumming his fingers along the tabletop in a thinly-veiled show of anxiety.

“No, I don’t want to ignore it. I just… wasn’t exactly expecting–”

“I said drop it,” he repeated, his voice so low that I doubt I would have realized he had spoken at all if not for the subtle movement of his lips.

My mouth fell closed automatically, and I frowned as an uncomfortable silence filtered in and sealed us up inside of it. It seemed to take hours for the waitress to return with the receipt, and when she did, Jarrod signed it hastily and slid out of the booth with the pizza box tucked under one arm, leaving me no choice but to trail wordlessly behind him.

My legs were just as long as Jarrod’s—if not a bit longer—but I was barely able to keep up with him as he navigated the lamplit L.A. streets. Despite the fact that I had led barefooted treks through more cities than I could ever attempt to count, he was clearly more adept at being a pedestrian than I was, having been born and raised just outside of New York City. His strides were rushed and almost frenzied, and he didn’t turn around to make sure that I was still following. Perhaps he was hoping that he had lost me.

When he reached his apartment, he threw the door open and entered without bothering to close it behind him. I sucked in a breath and stepped inside, collapsing onto the couch and listening to the flurry of sounds that came from the kitchen. First, there was the dull thump of the refrigerator door as he put away the leftover pizza; then, there was the clanking of bottles and the loud ’pop’ of one cap, followed closely by another. Finally, there was the sound of heavy footsteps, and he appeared in the doorway holding two beers, one in each hand.

“Double fisting tonight, are we?” I asked in a vain attempt to break the tension.

He merely shook his head and gave me one of the frosty bottles before lowering himself onto the opposite end of the couch. I set the drink down on the coffee table and scooted closer to him until our thighs just barely touched. Bristling at the mild contact, he wasted no time starting on his fourth beer of the evening, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in an unsteady rhythm that probably matched the beating of his heart. 

Ignoring the voice in my head that told me to keep my distance, I reached out and placed my hand along his forearm. 

“I really want to talk about this,” I spoke quietly.

“Can we please just fucking let it go?” he asked wearily, a noticeable bite to his tone.

“Sure… sorry.” I quickly withdrew my hand and leaned my elbows on my knees, staring down and studying the faded crisscrossed pattern of the carpet. 

“No, I’m sorry,” came his muted voice a few long moments later. “I shouldn’t have said… whatever it was I said in the restaurant. It’s not like it matters, anyway.”

“Of course it matters!” I practically cried, my eyes bouncing from the floor to meet his gaze. “You’ve always mattered to me.”

“I just meant that you’re clearly dealing with a lot of crap right now, and the last thing I want to do is burden you with anything else.”

“You could never be a burden to me,” I assured him, letting my hand fall back to his arm, where I absently traced the outline of his most recent tattoo. “I don’t regret a single thing that happened between us.”

“But that’s just it—’we’ don’t even exist anymore, Taylor. We gave each other what we thought we needed at the time, and then we moved on with our lives. I shouldn’t have called you up when I found out you were in L.A. I shouldn’t have let myself turn my attraction to you into anything more…”

“It was always more than that, though,” I said. “Something about you called out to me and pulled me in from the very start. You’re not only an amazing musician—you’re an amazing _person_. You make me look at life in a whole new way.”

“I feel the exact same way about you,” he replied, placing his half-empty bottle on the table and leaning back against the cushions with a sigh. “But what we shared… it wasn’t supposed to last, Tay. Falling in love with you was never part of the plan.” 

“Sometimes, we can’t help who we fall for,” I whispered sadly, thinking not of Jarrod in that moment at all, but of Zac. 

It was both scary and strange, how seamlessly the separate visions of my brother and the man sitting beside me folded into one. When his soft lips met mine, I almost forgot whose embrace I was lost within—until that tiny lightning bolt struck me in a fierce and startling reminder. 

*** * * * * * * * * ***

When Jarrod and I were together on tour, every moment was a stolen one. The kisses and secrets we shared rarely left the confines of dark, deserted pubs or the hidden recesses of city streets. I had dropped to my knees on more dirty bathroom floors than I cared to recall. Therefore, the freedom we were granted in the privacy of his apartment was at once foreign and entirely luxurious.

For once, we were allowed to indulge in the idea of _time_. 

We eventually moved from the living room to his bed, shedding our clothes before we crawled between the sheets. It was obvious that we were both more than a little aroused, our erections brushing together in an electric sort of dance beneath the covers. But while the look of unleashed desire in his eyes let me know that he would have given me all that I asked for, I didn’t ask for anything, and he seemed to be remarkably okay with that. He simply wrapped his arms around my waist and drew a line of kisses all across my skin, from the small of my back, to my shoulder blades, to the nape of my neck, and finally, to my waiting lips. 

He was such an unexpected comfort, his hair smelling of shampoo mixed with the faintest hint of saltwater, his warm breath sifting into my ears like a lullaby. And even though I was more than a thousand miles from Tulsa and was absolutely terrified of what the future held, I felt safe in that moment.

I felt like I was _home_.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

The sky was a sheet of rain-soaked gray, the heavy clouds rippling as they broke and swelled and formed again. The dark waves that approached were just as threatening and ceaseless as the downpour that attacked me from above. I had once been such a capable man, filled with life and light and promise, but now I didn’t even possess the strength to carry myself to shore.

I knew that I was going to drown. 

_Please don’t let me die._ I chanted the words over and over again to unseen powers, sometimes out loud, but mostly just in my own head. I had convinced myself that talking was an unnecessary waste of energy; it wasn’t like anyone could hear me, anyway. I choked on pockets of water-filled air and flailed my arms in a silent cry for help.

But it was too late for prayers. It was too late to entertain the possibility of being saved. 

“It’s never too late,” a voice drifted into my ear at the very same moment a pair of strong arms circled around my torso and guided me away from the storm.

Overcome with exhausted relief over not having to fight for my life anymore, I closed my eyes and let myself be carried, my limbs floating like dead fish through the cold water. 

Only when I felt the reassuring roughness of sand against my back did I open my eyes to discover who had come to my rescue. My brother’s chapped lips connected with the edge of my mouth and parted to reveal a phrase that I would never grow tired of hearing.

“I love you, too.” My voice was thick with unshed tears as I clung to his familiar body and vowed to never let him go.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

The scene melted away quickly, like ice cream on a summer day, leaving me feverish and filled with a gripping sense of loss. I blinked several times and found Jarrod pressed tightly against me, staring at me with a caged look of confusion, his eyes reminding me of the rainclouds that had been closing in on me just moments ago.

“Fuck. I’m sorry.” I released him from the death grip I’d been holding him in and blushed when I saw that my stubby fingernails had left tattoos of crescent moons along the smooth skin of his chest. 

“No worries,” he replied, brushing a sweaty lock of hair from my forehead.

“I was having a nightmare, and I… I thought you were someone else,” I mumbled into his neck, my cheeks still ablaze with embarrassment.

He soothed my nerves with a kiss and gently rolled away from me, placing just enough distance between us so that I could have some space to gather my thoughts and calm down. While I closed my eyes and coaxed my breathing back into a semi-regular rhythm, I felt his fingers close around my wrist, moving tenderly across my wounded knuckles.

“Can I ask you something?” he spoke up finally, his voice hushed and hesitant.

I opened my eyes and pulled him back into my line of vision slowly, the way I eased myself back into my surroundings after being blinded by an unexpected camera flash. I nodded.

“Does… um…” He stopped and cleared his throat softly before trying again. “Is there any chance that Zac has anything to do with _this_?” He motioned toward my injured hand.

“Why do you ask?” came my too-quick response.

“Well, do you remember the last time we…” 

It was Jarrod’s turn to blush, and I nodded once more. Of course I remembered. I remembered pressing my palms flat against the brick wall of a nameless building as he entered me. I remembered begging him for more. And I remembered the chill in the air and the bittersweet taste of blood from capturing my bottom lip between my teeth during a wild and unanticipated thrust.

I raised my eyebrows at him tiredly, prompting him to make his point. His cheeks grew redder still, and it seemed to be a genuine struggle for him to get the next words out.

“You said his name when you came.”


	24. Naked Truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. **It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.** ” – Oscar Wilde._

Suddenly, drowning didn’t sound like such a bad idea, so I closed my eyes and prayed for my dissolved nightmare to return. But I wasn’t that lucky. Then again, luck hadn’t been on my side at all lately, except for in the occasional dream. I shouldn’t have expected to be magically saved. 

When I opened my eyes, I found that Jarrod had changed his position on the bed. Acutely aware that he was closer to me but no longer touching me, I shivered and diverted my eyes from the intensity of his gaze. His arrow-like stare had a way of disarming me, of making me forget myself completely, but in that seemingly endless sea of moments, I couldn’t afford to be rendered so utterly defenseless.

“Tay?” he spoke up after a long stretch of silence.

I lifted my head and blinked slowly, watching his dusk-colored features cycle in and out of focus as I tried to remember. Whereas Isaac and Zac usually couldn’t manage to recall what they’d had for breakfast on any given day, I prided myself on having a pretty decent memory. But I truly had no recollection of moaning Zac’s name. I suppose it was just another unconscious manifestation of my lasting desire for him; another mark of my body’s betrayal of my heart.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” I meant to speak carefully, but the words poured out in a quick tumble. 

He studied me intently, curiously, his hand brushing up to sweep messy bangs away from my eyes. Despite my various attempts to hide during our less than comfortable exchange, Jarrod ensured that he could see me at all times.

“At first, I thought I must have imagined it. What would possess you to cry out your own brother’s name during sex? It just didn’t make sense,” he started. “But the more I watched you on that tour, the more I began to understand. I mean, you’d have to be blind not to notice that you two are a hell of a lot closer than most brothers are. It’s a rare gift, really, to be able to connect with _anyone_ on that level, let alone a sibling. Most people don’t even like their siblings all that much. But you and Zac have this… this almost _effortless_ way of communicating that’s really interesting to watch. It’s like you’re so in-tune with each other that words aren’t even necessary. So as much as I didn’t want to believe what you said that night, it wasn’t all that difficult for me to imagine. In fact, it kinda made perfect sense that over the years, the connection you shared turned from a brotherly bond into something else… into this amazingly strong form of lust.” 

“Love.” My voice was ghostlike now, like the whisper of his fingers as they ran along the ridges of my spine. “I’m in love with him, Jar.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes continuing to hold mine in an unwavering embrace as the rest of my body trembled and threatened to unravel.

As the silence between us thickened, I moved away from him, sliding to the very edge of the bed. I suddenly felt so naked—not just because I wasn’t clothed, but because I was without the comforting armor of my secret. I had grown so accustomed to lying; after all, what other option did I have? But now, it was like the world had forced brutal honesty onto me, and as a result, had left me struggling with a series of terrifying questions. How long would it be before everyone else in my life discovered the truth? How could I possibly explain this to my parents? My friends? My children? My wife?

I muttered a garbled obscenity and reached for my crumpled pile of clothes on the floor, but before I could put them back on, Jarrod pulled me gently back toward the pillows.

“Don’t,” he pleaded, dusting his fingers along my cheek, pressing them into the bed of newly-formed stubble. “I like you better this way.”

“You’re honestly okay with this?” I asked in open disbelief, drawing the sheets around my body in an awkward attempt to shield the parts of me that were able to be concealed. “Didn’t you go to school for psychology? Aren’t there a thousand different ways to describe how fucked up I am for loving him like this?”

“I have a degree in studying people’s _heads_ , Taylor—not their hearts,” came his quiet reply. “Plus, I don’t have any right to judge you. Believe me, I’ve done my share of fucked up things, too. Things that I keep to myself because I don’t think anyone could ever understand…”

As though the words had pressed down on him like heavy weights, he folded against the sheets and slid between them, although he managed to be much more graceful than I had been a few moments ago.

He shifted toward me and trailed a slow line down the fraction of exposed skin on my torso. In that moment, I had never been more aware of our differences. Where his chest was smooth and unblemished, mine was scarred from a childhood surgery and covered in patches of matted hair; where his slightly bronzed arms were painted with colorful tattoos, mine were dotted with lines of pale freckles and ever-present gooseflesh—yet looking into his eyes was like staring at a mirror. I couldn’t see past the surface, but my own confused pain was reflected back at me, giving me no choice but to face it.

“My heart was broken when I first fell for you,” he admitted in a hesitant voice, his fingers at rest on my chest. “His name was Stephan.”

My own heart paused and then sped up into a hammering rhythm, and I knew that Jarrod could feel every jagged beat. 

“We met when I was in grad school… he was my professor, actually. He was a fifty-five-year-old cancer survivor, married to a woman much younger. He was also a dad. He didn’t have a herd like you–" He paused to give a crooked smile. "–but he had one kid, a daughter who was diagnosed with Asperger’s pretty early on. His life was the opposite of easy, but he had this way of smiling through it… of never making it seem hard at all. It was what I loved most about him, and it was what I first noticed about _you_.” 

His eyes drifted away from mine then, as though he regretted having made the comparison.

“He loved his wife, but she was so obsessed with caring for their daughter that she seemed to forget all about him. In the two years we were together, he spent more nights in my tiny Brooklyn apartment than he did in his mansion out on Long Island. He taught me things I couldn’t learn from lectures or textbooks; and I cooked him meals his wife never attempted to make for him at home. We fell into a rhythm over time—and while deep down, I knew that things between us couldn’t last forever, we just made _so much sense_ together, you know?”

I nodded my head in a wild display of understanding, his words hitting dangerously close to home. I knew exactly what he meant.

“But then, like bricks slipping out of place in an old house, things started to fall apart. They cut his position down to part-time at the university, and he eventually lost his job altogether. It was pretty clear by that time that his wife only stayed with him because of the cushy lifestyle he was able to provide for her, so when he lost not only his academic status, but his money, she threatened to leave him forever.”

He sighed heavily and pressed his palm flat against my skin, leaving it in a runny pool of perspiration, although I didn’t know which one of us was sweating, nor did it matter.

“It was perfectly awful timing when my manager called to tell me about the tour, but I needed the money, even though it wasn’t much of anything. No offense.” He crinkled his brow when he realized what he’d said, but I shook my head to imply that none was taken. “I was finally finished with school at that point, but I still hadn’t found a job. Other than playing one-off shows in Brooklyn every couple of months, I had no form of income. I was broke as hell.”

“Part of me hated to leave Stephan during such a dark time, but another part of me was grateful for the escape. If I was the reason his life was in shambles, then maybe my absence would help him reach a turning point. Maybe without me, he could repair his marriage, find a new job, and get back on his feet again.”

Tears welled in his eyes, giving his sadness a tangible glow. He looked so broken and defeated that I felt the need to cry for him. I clasped my hand over his and held it tightly, watching a single tear come loose and roll down his cheek just moments before the next somber words came.

“He didn’t want our relationship to end, but I told him that we needed a break. He tried contacting me night after night when I was away on tour, but I ignored every single one of his calls and e-mails. Then, one day, I got a call from Kelsey—my best friend, the only person in the world who knew about us, the only person I trusted enough to tell—and she… she told me that Stephan… that he was dead.”

The last word was lost inside of a choked sob as his face paled.

“Jesus… what happened?” I asked, unable to stop the hushed and prying question. “Nevermind. You don’t have to–,”

“An overdose, I guess,” he replied. “The obituary said he died following a ‘brief illness,’ but I knew that was a lie. Once the cancer was gone, he _never_ got sick; and despite his medical history, I still attest that he was one of the healthiest people I’ve ever known. But the autopsy revealed toxic levels of alcohol and coke in his blood.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked softly, stroking the fever-hot skin of his hand.

“For similar reasons you didn’t tell me about your feelings for Zac, I suppose. At the beginning, I was worried about being judged. I mean, there I was, sleeping with someone twenty years older than me—and a _man_ , no less. But once he passed away, I kept everything to myself because I didn’t want anyone’s pity. I didn’t need to feel any more blame, even if it was mostly self-induced. And it was just easier to lie, to say that I had to skip out on a couple of shows to fly home for a family wedding, than to state the real reason—that I was going to my married lover’s funeral.”

A few more tears broke free, and he ground them violently into his cheeks.

“He told me he loved me every time we saw each other. Every time we spoke. And I never said it back, even though I felt it—even though he was the first person who ever really understood my heart. So, that’s why…” He sucked in a shuddering breath and lifted his eyes to mine. “That’s why I was so honest with you at dinner tonight. I didn’t want to make the same mistake all over again. I didn’t want to lose you before letting you know exactly how I felt.”

My veil of strength collapsed at his words, exposing my own tears even though I had no right to cry.

“You’re not going to lose me,” I whispered, inching my face closer to his.

“I guess you’re right,” he replied after a few long moments, his eyes disturbingly vacant, like windows overlooking a faraway and deserted stretch of land. “How can I lose what I never had in the first place?”


	25. Illumine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. **I am not sad** , he would repeat to himself over and over, **I am not sad**. As if he might one day convince himself.” – Jonathan Safran Foer._

The few tears he shed had dried quietly on his cheeks, lending them a pale glow that matched the ghost of moonlight clinging to the window. 

“You’re such a strong and beautiful person,” I whispered, brushing my lips against his jaw.

His muscles tightened at the contact and then relaxed instinctively, like he was at war with himself and no matter which side won, he’d still wind up losing somehow. I understood that feeling all too well.

His body was trembling ever so slightly, so I moved my lips down his neck to his chest, placing them against his heart to calm him. As I kissed along the tattooed sleeve of his arm, he let out a long and ragged moan, one that sounded much like an echo of my name. His hips came next, bones thinly veiled beneath unmarked skin. I let my tongue dart out and sweep across his erection slowly but without warning, wanting to give him some time to adjust but wanting even more to just consume him. 

When his pulse began to quicken, quivering beneath my fingertips like a bow string pulled too tight, I paused and looked up. His eyes were heavy-lidded, but in their depths I saw a fire that destroyed his usual aura of peace. 

“Do you have any…”

“In the drawer by your left hand,” he was quick to respond.

Once I clumsily managed to produce the small bottle, Jarrod surprised me by flipping me over with a barely noticeable twist of his arm, rendering me helpless beneath him. Two fingers slipped inside of me smoothly, and I closed my eyes and arched my back, coaxing them in deeper.

As he entered me and triggered an immediate cry of pleasure, wasting no time in hitting the spot that made my toes curl and my vision blur, the same spot that most people waited until the end to find, I asked myself how we had gotten from exchanging forbidden secrets to this. But the answer was all too evident. Sex between us had always been as emotional as it was physical. Maybe on the surface, we appeared as just two bodies moving together beneath the unwavering eye of the moon, but our hearts spoke to each other in those stolen moments, allowing us to be open. Allowing us to finally be _honest_. 

The minutes ticked by and our rhythm only grew more intense and desperate. I groaned and held onto his biceps, feeling them flex beneath my palms, watching the lightning bolt—that small symbol of myself—flash in and out of sight with each new thrust.

“I love you.” He captured my lips as a warmth spilled out and spread inside of me, the unexpected kiss causing me to unravel between our locked bodies.

Once we were both entirely spent, he rolled onto the bed beside me and pressed several burning kisses to my temple.

“Now, what were you saying about not having me?” I asked almost teasingly, a smile inching onto my lips.

I expected him to respond with a witty remark, or at the very least, a grin, but instead he just pushed a few damp locks of hair from my forehead and stared at me like he was trying to see right through me, making it clear that the joke wasn’t lost on him but that he didn’t find it the least bit funny.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I opened my eyes to the telltale aromas of a hot meal wafting in from the kitchen. But although I was awake, I didn’t feel fully present, like I was still stuck in a distant dream. I ran my hands down the length of my body to ground myself, rubbing the memories of Jarrod into my skin in a way that was both thrilling and painful. 

“Taylor?” His low voice accompanied his shirtless form in the doorway of the bedroom.

“Hmm?”

“What time’s your flight back to Tulsa?” he asked casually, his gaze dropping to the cell phone in his hand.

“Twelve-thirty, I think,” I mumbled, calling to mind the typed itinerary that our manager had given us a few days prior in a vain attempt to be ahead of schedule for once. “Why, what time is it?”

“One-fifteen.”

“Well, shit,” I replied.

Pushing the covers aside, I raked my fingers through my hair, the hazy sense of tranquility I had felt just a few moments ago shattering neatly into a panic. It certainly wasn’t the first time I had missed a flight in my many years of traveling, but it _was_ the first time I had more or less vanished without letting at least Zac know where I was.

“Fuck my life. They’re going to murder me.”

Jarrod didn’t seem fazed by my agitated outburst or my nakedness as he straddled the edge of the bed, gently removing my hand from my knotted mass of tangles before I could do any real damage. 

“Yeah, Isaac left a couple of messages on my phone earlier, asking if I knew where you were. He didn’t sound too happy, but he’ll get over it. You’re a big boy and are fully capable of finding your own way home—I’m sure he knows that,” he said with a shrug. “Why don’t we have breakfast, and then you can worry about sorting things out?”

“Okay.” 

I gave in quietly, feeling more like a kid than the mature, twenty-nine-year-old adult I believed myself to be on most days. And like a child, I let Jarrod wait on me, suddenly feeling too weak to stand up and make my way to the living room to get my own food.

We shared breakfast in bed—a modest feast of sausage links and pancakes—and it wasn’t long before our syrup-soaked lips found their way to each other once again.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I booked the latest flight available out of LAX and used Jarrod’s phone to send a quick message to Ike, asking that he please relay my change of plans to Natalie. I was probably an insensitive asshole for communicating with my wife through my older brother instead of directly. But considering the fact that she had delivered the news of her current pregnancy via a text message, I couldn’t bring myself to feel too guilty. 

It was the longest stretch I could ever remember being without a cell phone, and the taste of freedom was delicious, although admittedly very strange. For the first time in what seemed like forever, I didn’t have anyone to answer to, and my pocket wasn’t constantly beeping and buzzing and flashing with loud and endless reminders of my various mistakes. 

Jarrod and I stayed in bed for most of the day. Neither of us wanted this to be the end, so instead, we chose to pretend that we had all the time in the world. We even tried to make our shower last forever, pressed together beneath the stream of running water until it finally turned cold and our skin began to shrivel into puckered prunes. 

The drive to the airport was eerily silent save for the Death Cab album filtering through the stereo, the somber notes quiet beneath the surrounding blanket of noise. After he had pulled up by the curb next to the entrance marked _Departures_ and switched off the engine, I leaned in and gave him a passionate kiss, brushing my thumbs against the dark circles beneath his eyes, taking a mental snapshot of his face to carry home with me.

When he eventually spoke, his voice was hoarse and the pain inside of it was naked.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted.

“Neither do I.”

“I hope whatever happened between you and Zac can be fixed,” he added softly.

 _So do I_ , I responded wordlessly as I kissed him again. His fingers closed around my hand and he squeezed it once, twice, half a dozen times before he let me go.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

I fell in and out of broken slumber, my head snapping up from its resting place against the window of the airplane as I struggled to recall where I was. Some dreams were about Jarrod, others involved Zac, but the resounding theme among them all was loneliness. 

“Anything to drink?” the stewardess asked in a bright voice, beaming a practiced smile down on me through lipstick-painted lips. 

To be completely honest, I wouldn’t have minded a double shot of gin, but I was sick of feeling fuzzy and disconnected, so instead I settled on a cup of black coffee. It was lukewarm and mostly tasteless, but at least it gave me a little jolt of energy and provided a brief distraction from the overwhelming chaos of my mind.

As we drew closer and closer to land, the dusky clouds dissolved and the city began to take shape before my eyes. It had come to be such a familiar sight over the years that I practically had it memorized, but that night, it was like I was noticing every moonlit curve and contour for the first time. I went through the motions of deplaning feeling much like I was still caught between layers of fog. My head was heavy with more than just fatigue and premature signs of jetlag as I grabbed my luggage from the overhead bin and weaved through the sparse crowds of strangers in the airport terminal.

I stepped out into the clear night and squinted through the darkness for my ride home. But instead of finding Natalie seated behind the wheel of my SUV, her small frame just barely visible through the driver’s side window, I found Zac standing alone at the mouth of the parking garage. His back was facing me as he stared at the ground intently, like he was searching for something he had just recently lost.

“I thought Nat was picking me up?” I set my bag on the concrete to give my arms a rest, an immense wave of guilt crashing over me as soon as I felt the unintentional sting of my words. 

“She was planning on it, but she called me up and asked if I’d do it instead. She had a rough day with the kids, I guess, and wanted to go bed early… She blamed it on pregnancy hormones or something.” Although he still hadn’t looked up at me, I could plainly detect the sarcasm in his voice.

He hoisted my bag onto his shoulder without another word and led the way across the deserted parking lot. I didn’t know what to say, so I let myself into his truck and kept my gaze on the dusty trail of lamplight on the dashboard. After a few moments, he finally turned to face me without starting the ignition. His eyes were dark and hollow, lacking all of their familiar warmth.

“I lied.” His voice was nearly a whisper as a strand of hair came loose from his ponytail and latched onto his thick eyelashes. “Natalie didn’t ask me to come pick you up. I offered.”

“Why?” I asked, honestly believing that after everything I’d put him through, I should have been the last person he cared to see, let alone willingly do favors for.

“I wanted to see you,” he explained, shaking the hair from his eyes without blinking. “And, well, there’s something I need to say to you…”


	26. Letting Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You've got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. It's like boats. You keep your motor on so you can steer with the current. And when you hear the sound of the waterfall coming nearer and nearer, tidy up the boat, put on your best tie and hat, and smoke a cigar right up till the moment you go over. That's a triumph.” – Ray Bradbury._

While I waited with bated breath, Zac fell silent save for the soft, calculated drumming of his fingers on the steering wheel. The tension between us was suffocating. His eyes caught mine briefly before reaching past me, latching onto something in the dark distance that I couldn’t possibly see. He was right beside me, but he felt so very far away. It was as if the cracks in our relationship had pulled apart to reveal an ocean deep enough to drown us both, and although all it took was for one of us to reach out and touch the other to try to bridge the fraying gap, neither of us did. 

I spent those long, quiet moments studying his face, drawing imaginary lines from his familiar lips to his stoic brow in a vain attempt to predict what he was about to say. And in an instant, my mind was flooded with a sharp and crippling fear: 

_He’s going to leave you. He doesn’t love you anymore._

“You slept with him, didn’t you?”

As soon as the hushed words slipped past my lips, I begged the floor beneath my weathered soles to open up and swallow me. It was the worst question I could have possibly asked him, not only because it lacked both thought and tact, but because it implied the very thing I was guilty of myself.

“Are you serious?” His gaze bounced back swiftly toward my face like a ball on a tether, reminding me that no matter how detached we had become, we were still impossibly connected. “Jesus Christ, Taylor… just because _you_ are quick to jump into bed with someone else doesn’t mean we all are.”

My cheeks burned and I pushed a few limp strands of hair into my eyes, wishing for the millionth time that I hadn’t chopped nearly all of it off last year. Like so many of the choices I made, that haircut stuck to me like a bad habit, reminding me each and every day that I was far from the person I truly wanted to be.

“What if I had?” he challenged. 

It felt like it had been several hours since either one of us had spoken, but the numbers on the tiny digital clock between us snapped into focus and let me know that not even ten minutes had passed.

“You seemed to have no problem running straight to Jarrod when we started having issues. Would you honestly blame me if I had done the same with Alex?”

I couldn’t answer him without sounding exactly like the hypocrite he had just accused me of being, so I drew my lips into a straight line and focused on the cool blue numbers of the clock, watching another tired minute tick by.

“But this…” He waved his hand through the air between us. “This isn’t about Jarrod or Alex—or anybody else, for that matter. It’s about _you_. I’m worried about you, Tay.”

_What? Why?_

“Remember those fucking panic attacks that used to hit me whenever we were about to play a show?”

I nodded, recalling the countless times Zac’s almond-tinted eyes had reached across some cramped dressing room toward mine. When he was much younger, it was practically impossible to shut him up; he had loud and extremely long-winded opinions on nearly every subject, even when he had no clue what he was talking about. But in those moments when his stage fright overwhelmed him, he became so quiet and small, like a turtle retreating into the domed safety of his shell. Our family doctor put him on prescription meds for awhile to try to level him out, but it was clear after several months of virtually no progress that they were totally ineffective. But for whatever reason, I was always able to calm him down. And as much as it hurt me to watch him suffer, it actually felt really good to know that I was the only one who could coax him out of those debilitating moods. To know that I could _help_ him. 

“Well, you were the one who always reminded me that it was only a stage,” he continued. “That all I had to do was slip on an invisible mask, climb out of my head for a few hours, and give the audience everything I had. _It’s just a show_ , you’d say. But somewhere along the way, I think you lost sight of your own advice. The lines between the stage and the real world got tangled together until the knots were impossible to untie, until they became one and the same. And now, it’s like there’s no difference at all between the person behind the mask and the mask itself. I feel like I don’t know you anymore… but only because _you_ don’t even know yourself.” 

While Zac used to be hyper and talkative almost to a fault, he had grown up to be a man of precious few words, which made the speech he had just delivered all the more poignant and startling. His last sentence in particular went off like a gunshot, and I closed my eyes and imagined the pointed bullet tunneling into me, tearing to shreds my already broken heart.

I used to have such an amazing and unbridled passion for life. I used to devour every experience handed to me, all the while asking for more, honestly believing that each one, however rushed and hazy, would bring me closer to achieving some greater sense of self. 

But he was right; I _did_ get lost along the way. With nothing but my own foolish will to guide me, I was inevitably led into dark and dangerous territory. I wanted to know what sex was like, so I fucked a girl who was all too eager to let me have her. Then, I wanted to know what it was like to be alive in the midst of dying, so I inhaled line after line of harmless-looking white powder and hoped that it would somehow save me. 

Over and over again, I told myself that I knew who I was. I had always hated the idea of confining myself to just one particular way of life, so instead I likened myself to an abstract painting, something both intensely colorful and vague. I was an artist, a brother, a son, a father, a husband, an old soul, a friend. But really, I was a thousand different unfinished paintings thrown together. And if I had been asked to separate a single piece of myself from the whole haphazard mess, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. 

I _still_ couldn’t do it. 

I heard the lingering echo of my words like they were someone else’s, like I was floating on a cloud that rested high above the sad, dark world where people and things fell apart. I told Zac about the lifelike nightmare in which he’d come to my rescue; I told him about sleeping with Jarrod; and I even told him the heartbreaking tale of Stephan. In hindsight, there were certain things (particularly the tragic death of Jarrod’s ex-lover) that I shouldn’t have shared with him—that I didn’t have the right to share—but it was like a dam had burst and caused the naked truth to come rushing out without my consent.

Sometime between when I’d started talking and when I finally paused to catch my breath, Zac had placed his hand on my waist. It was but a gentle touch, his fingers just barely grazing the belt loop of my jeans, and yet it stole my breath away, rendering my voice even thinner and weaker than it already was. Maybe the gesture was meant to be taken as a wordless request for silence. Maybe it was Zac’s way of stopping up the dam—but I wasn’t done. 

Not yet.

“I’ve gotten so good at fucking things up that it must seem like I do it on purpose, but I swear that I didn’t want this,” I said, glancing up at him and offering a small, miserable smile. “I never thought my past would come creeping back to haunt me. I had no idea that I’d end up bumping into Alex after all these years, or that Jarrod would track me down and things would get so damn complicated…”

“And I know…” I sucked in a deep breath and ran my sweaty palms along my thighs. “I know I made everything even worse by keeping things from you and going to Jarrod’s instead of staying. Instead of waiting until we’d both cooled off and then talking it all out. I know I let you down. And I know you probably want to give up on me right now, but I really hope that you don’t.”

“Do you even hear what you’re saying?” he asked softly, looking pained. “Have you stopped to think that maybe you turned to him for a reason? I’m nothing more than a shoulder to lean on and a warm body to fall asleep next to when we’re lucky enough to have the chance. But what about Jarrod? If you think about it, he gives you things that I can’t, and he understands you in a way that I’ll never be able to. Fuck, Tay, I’ve spent practically my whole life trying to figure you out, but sometimes I don’t think I’ve made any progress! Yes, I might be sad and more than a little screwed up, and I might be battling some of my own demons, but I’m not broken. I don’t need to be fixed. But _you_ are, and you do… and from what it sounds like, so does he.”

“Zac, I—,”

His kiss caught me entirely off-guard, his lips capturing mine with something close to violence. As he tightened his grip on my waist, his breathing grew heavy and labored, destroying his previously composed demeanor. My head spun as our tongues clashed together in a frenzy, seeking more than what our mouths could allow. If he was trying to prove that our spark had burned out, then he had failed miserably because I could still feel it, the heat between us as scorching and certain as an actual fire. 

“You know I could never give up on you. We’re brothers, after all,” he whispered against my lips, brushing the strands of hair away from my forehead and securing them behind my ear. Then, he grabbed my hand and thumbed slow circles across my palm while he stared at me intently. “But I really think that’s all we should be for now.”

I shut my eyes and swallowed, fighting down the bile I could taste in the back of my throat. 

“Is that what you needed to tell me?” I eventually forced out.

“Yeah.”

My eyes still closed, I let my hand slide out of his and collide with the edge of the seat. I had been a passenger in his car a million times before, but the fabric beneath my fingertips had never felt so harsh and entirely foreign. 

“Are you okay?” His breath was warm against my cheek, a sensory reminder of his closeness. “Taylor, please look at me.”

“I’m fine,” I lied, feeling another sword of pain slice neatly through my gut when I eventually opened my eyes and met his gaze. “I’m just exhausted. Take me home?”

He nodded, and then he leaned in and pressed his lips to mine one last time. Like a firework, the kiss came to life with crackling intensity before fading away slowly, until it left nothing but a shadowy imprint on my heart.


	27. Coffee Stains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it.” – Marilynne Robinson._

The ‘MOE’ was fast approaching—a weekend-long "members only event" for our fan club involving live music, food, and entertainment sponsored by friends and local vendors alike—which meant that our hometown would soon be flooded with fans from all around the globe. Which meant that Zac and I were required to spend time together as we sat through long, tedious business meetings and practice sessions. But although we had seen each other every day, it had been a week since our last truly meaningful exchange.

Rehearsing for the upcoming shows was easy enough, all things considered. After all, I had masked my secret love for him for years, tucking it away like an addiction that I couldn’t afford to expose. I’d gotten good at using music as both a weapon and a shield. I lost myself in familiar chords instead of focusing on the alluring pearls of sweat that lined his brow and his full lips. And I learned to latch onto strangers’ eyes in the crowd instead of always finding his. 

I’d also gotten very good at lying to myself.

 _It will get easier in time,_ I used to repeat as I surveyed my reflection in the mirror, recognizing just how twisted and unnatural it was to love him like I did. But that statement rang just as untrue now as it did back then. It was impossible to forget someone who was etched into every single aspect of my life. 

As the days became longer and brighter, I grew more and more withdrawn. Each morning, the sun struggled against my bedroom window in a relentless bid for entry, but I was quick to draw the curtains closed to block out every last shred of light. I cloaked myself in darkness, too, wearing black clothes that accented the hollow circles beneath my eyes.

It was my own way of mourning.

I feared falling apart in his presence, but strangely enough, it was the time I spent without him that proved to be the most unbearable. Natalie had taken to whisking the kids to my parents’ house during the day, mistakenly sensing that I needed peace and quiet in order to prepare for the coming weekend. But I honestly would have preferred chaos—Viggo’s arms around my neck, his chubby little hands tugging at my hair with excited impatience, or Penny’s shrill, petulant cries as her older brother managed to outsmart her yet again, or even my wife’s constant and recycled line of inquiries—( _What color should we paint the baby’s room? Is it too soon to pick out names? When do you think I’ll start showing?_ )—to the unspeakable grief that gripped me from within.

There were so many questions that I wanted to ask him. 

Was it really that easy for him to let go? When he ran his hands along the curve of his wife’s pregnant belly, was he wrapped inside of a private cocoon of memories? When he was in the shower, naked and alone, did he touch himself to thoughts of me? Did he pick up his phone and type out candid messages to me that he never wound up sending? Did he cry himself to sleep?

There were times when my entire body was held captive by my sorrow, and in those moments, I shook so violently that I was convinced I was having a seizure. It was then that I reached for the bottle of gin hidden deep within the liquor cabinet like it was the only lifeline I had left. A good man shouldn’t drink to begin with, and he should never drink alone, but I was too far gone to care anymore. I was nothing but a castaway, a fucked up shadow of a love gone terribly wrong. 

Since sadness and weakness go hand in hand, I inevitably took up smoking again. As soon as I left the house, my fingers itched for my newly purchased lighter, my lungs aching for the burn that only a bitter mouthful of smoke could provide. I was too tired to be stealthy, and Isaac caught me stomping out the remains of a cigarette before heading into the studio the day before. I had expected a fatherly lecture, or at the very least, a grave and disappointed look. 

But he acted as though he hadn’t even seen me.

If Natalie noticed anything out of the ordinary—my swollen eyes, the stale hint of nicotine on my scarves and jackets, the fact that I was no longer whole—she didn’t say anything. Then again, I had been cheating on her for months (sometimes right under her nose) and she’d been none the wiser. But I was the one who was falling to pieces now, so the joke was on me in the end, I supposed.

The hour before our final rehearsal found me alone at the kitchen table, staving off the beginnings of a migraine with a large pot of coffee. I was so caught up in my tangled thoughts that I didn’t hear the door open, and my heart stopped at the unexpected sight of my younger brother in the doorway. His hair was still damp from what I assumed was a recent shower, and his shirt came untucked from the waistband of his low-slung jeans as he approached, revealing a stripe of tanned and glowing skin. 

I sucked in a trembling breath as I drank him in. How was it possible for a person to grow more and more beautiful with each passing day? And why wasn’t I that lucky? I felt like I was disappearing. 

I secured my hands around my coffee cup in a useless attempt to ground myself. Meanwhile, Zac grabbed a mug from the cabinet and filled it with strong, black liquid before stirring in absurd amounts of milk and sugar. He moved through the room effortlessly, like it was his home instead of mine, and it was with that same air of casual entitlement that he lowered himself into the empty chair beside me.

I didn’t know what to say to him.

Since we were the opposite of normal, it only made sense that normal greetings such as “What’s up?” or “How’s it going?” had never really been part of our routine. Zac had a low tolerance for exercising those formalities, especially with me, choosing instead to start off with a sarcastic remark or the latest immature joke his son had heard at school. And if we were lucky enough to be alone, we often bypassed words entirely. 

My spine tingled as I recalled a late morning just a few days after my twenty-ninth birthday, when he had entered my house unannounced and caught me off-guard. 

“Can I help you?” I had asked, lifting my eyes from the pile of dirty dishes in the sink that I had offered to tackle while Natalie and Kate took the kids to the park. 

With a mischievous grin, Zac replied that he was starving, but before I even had time to offer him any leftover frittata, he had pinned me against the dishwasher and dropped to his knees. I came embarrassingly quickly, shooting all over his face, my bare feet, the cool kitchen floor. We had spent the rest of that blissful afternoon in the guest bedroom, our bodies moving fluidly together between the crisp sheets, our voices hushed but bursting with passion.

My eyes glazed over with unwanted emotion and I stared down into the wispy dregs that had settled along the bottom of my mug to hide any possible tears. Outside the window, a bird sang a low, melancholy song that lingered through the growing silence. 

Zac’s fingers closed around my wrist without warning and coaxed my hand into his own. As his calloused palm brushed over the thin web of veins, I gasped and bit my lip, accidentally tearing through the fragile skin. 

“How’ve you been?” He punctuated the question by capturing his own bottom lip between his teeth. 

“Fine.” I shrugged and took a nonexistent sip of coffee, frowning when I tasted blood.

“I mean…” He searched my face closely, like he knew he had a better chance of finding the answer there than in my words. “Have you been eating? Sleeping? Kate said that Nat mentioned–”

“Zac, please don’t do this, okay? I’m surviving.” My tone was much more clipped and harsh than I’d intended, causing shock to color his eyes like coffee stains. “You don’t have to pretend to care about these things.”

“I’m not pretending,” he responded quietly, his fingers stretching out against my own like a starfish adhering to a seabed. “You know I’m not.”

I closed my eyes, allowing myself to indulge in the comfort of his touch for another long moment before pulling my hand away. The bird chirped a few more lonely notes as Zac slowly sipped his coffee.

“Why did you come here?” I finally asked, flinching as the pain cracked through my voice.

How the hell was I supposed to sing in front of hundreds of people when I could barely talk correctly? I would have made the executive decision to cancel the stupid event right then and there, had we not already put so much money, effort, and time into it.

“To make sure that you’re okay.”

“We’ve already covered this. I’m fine.” 

I opened my eyes, desperately searching the sunlit window for the bird that seemed to understand my pain, but of course I couldn’t find it. 

He nodded but didn’t look even remotely convinced. “Okay.”

Releasing his grip on the mug, he moved his hand to the back of my neck. As his fingers danced along the tense ribbons of muscle, I leaned in toward him, relaxing into his touch on instinct. Despite what he said, he knew my body better than anyone else, myself included, and I nearly wept because it felt so good. The kiss he pressed against my jaw was so soft and gentle and ghostlike that I honestly believed I had imagined it. It was the type of kiss I dreamed about whenever I couldn’t sleep. It was hot and tender and loving, the sweetest reward after an exhausting day. 

And then he pushed his chair back, thanked me for the coffee, and left without looking back.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Time moved in slow motion after that.

It felt like hours had passed when I finally heard the gravelly hum of an engine in the driveway, but I curled my hand around the drink he’d barely touched to find that it was still warm and pulsing like a heartbeat. My phone vibrated against my thigh in almost perfect time with the sounds of him driving away. I pulled it from the depths of my pocket and rested it on the tabletop, swiping my thumb across the screen to bring it to life.

Before I let myself look at the message, I wondered briefly if it was from Jarrod. I had sent him a quick text earlier in the week to let him know that I had a functioning phone again (and that I’d try not to throw this one through a car window), but I hadn’t heard back from him yet. I figured that he wanted to give me time and space to patch things up with Zac. Or maybe, like my brother, he was also done with me.

But the message wasn’t from Jarrod after all. It was from Zac. And it contained three simple words that, within the context of our current situation, were anything but simple.

_I miss you._


	28. Familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You could slip from out of nowhere / I could be there to catch your fall / We could laugh at ourselves and the writing that’s on the wall… It’s a narrow margin / Just room enough for regret in the inch and a half between ‘hey, how ya been?’ and ‘can I kiss you yet?’ / So we talk like nervous neighbors over a tall fence / True love, but for the lack of providence – Ani DiFranco._

The “members only event” for our band’s fan club came and went, leaving me with huge, gaping holes in my days. Under any other circumstances, I would have been grateful for the time off, but it was all but impossible to relax in my current state. 

I hadn’t been alone with Zac since the day he’d sent that text. After much deliberation, I had chosen to ignore it—and by _ignore_ , I meant that I didn’t reply to it because I didn’t know what to say. But I thought about it constantly. In fact, that three-word message was nothing short of haunting, driving me crazy with its myriad implications. 

Whenever we were together, we talked and joked around in a typical brotherly fashion, but the exchanges felt tired and frayed, like a threadbare blanket that had exhausted its true purpose, reduced to mere decoration as opposed to a thing of comfort, warmth, and safety. Although nobody could explain it, anyone who knew us at all could sense that things weren’t quite the same. We had kept the intimate details of our sex life under wraps for obvious reasons, but that hadn’t stopped us from being close to each other, even when we were in mixed company. But now, both Zac and I were extremely careful not to cross any lines. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how I chose to view it), in a family as large as ours, there was never a shortage of human buffers.

Meanwhile, Natalie had thrown herself into full-on wedding planning mode to prepare for our upcoming vow renewal, but her excitement was far from contagious. In fact, even just the smallest glance into her glittering brown eyes made me feel equal parts guilty and resentful. The spring in her step only succeeded in proving how exhausted I was. She placed floral arrangements in various rooms of the house, where they thrived under the healthy glow of the sun. The flowers were supposed to be rejuvenating, but all they did was remind me that everything eventually withers and dies. 

Didn’t she realize that it had been hard enough to get married the first time? I didn’t want to repeat the promises I’d somehow forced past my lips ten long years ago. I wasn’t sure I could handle my friends and family lifting their glasses to _Taylor and Natalie_ like we were some sort of tethered unit when she wasn’t my other half—she didn’t complete me. I felt like a lost soul being given a second chance to live, all the while knowing that the inevitable end would come around again in all its dark, demeaning lack of glory. 

I hid from those depressing thoughts by spinning a toxic web designed to trap me. I wasted my afternoons smoking, drinking, and plucking away at songs that no one else would ever hear. I kept my cell phone nearby out of habit, but other than the occasional alert of a friendly text from Jarrod or a work-related mass email, it remained almost eerily silent. Zac no longer called to say goodnight, his hushed, raspy tone of voice implying that he wasn’t far from his slumbering wife although his heart was. Even Natalie, who used to disrupt our band’s practice sessions several times a day with issues that were of little to no importance to me, seemed to have grown less dependent on me in the last several weeks. But rather than feel relieved by the sudden lack of interruptions, I was troubled by it. I wasn’t used to not being wanted, to not being _needed_. 

After the sad days came the even more desolate nights. It pained me to look back on how many recent midnight hours I had spent locked within the studio’s padded walls, stroking myself to visions behind closed eyelids. The images I called to mind never did justice to the memories, though, and I was always keenly aware that the hands touching me did not, in fact, belong to Zac. As I trembled and came all over my own fingers, I was left feeling even more hollow and unhappy than before, my brother’s name lodged somewhere in the back of my throat like a bitter pill I couldn’t quite force down no matter how hard I tried. 

The Saturday before the vow renewal began like any other day in my newly-formed cage of loneliness. While my children gathered around me at the kitchen table, chattering over heaping servings of pancakes about the things that made their young hearts patter, I tried to drown myself in a pot of strong, black coffee. I was startled back to life only when Viggo climbed into my lap and planted his sticky fingers in my hair, leaving behind a thick trail of syrup on my neck. It was a dirty move he had undoubtedly learned from his uncle. Zac loved to teach my kids bad habits, and he got a particular kick out of making messes on my body that he knew I would later allow him to clean up.

I was in the midst of changing my shirt after breakfast when my cell phone rang, the buzzing in my pocket nearly causing me to jump out of my skin. 

“You know what we haven’t done in awhile?” Isaac began without giving me time to greet him.

“What’s that?” I asked, the question slightly muffled as I shrugged my arms through the sleeves of a light blue polo.

“Gone out for a night on the town—just the two of us.”

“As tempting as that sounds, I can’t,” I responded automatically. “I have–”

“I know, I know, you have a hot date with your piano,” my older brother finished for me. Beneath his soft laughter, I detected a certain note of sympathy that made me cringe inwardly. I prided myself on keeping a curtain drawn around my emotions, but maybe I was more transparent than I thought. Either that, or Isaac was far more perceptive than I gave him credit for. “Trust me, Tay, it’ll still be there in the morning. It won’t kill you to take one night off. I really miss our one-on-one hangs.”

I rolled my eyes but nevertheless mumbled a reply that sounded loosely like “okay.” 

Isaac declared the matter settled and ended the call by emphasizing that I needed to be dressed and ready to go by seven o’clock at the latest. 

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Never one to stray far from his comfort zone, Isaac’s idea of a wild night out apparently involved having appetizers and drinks at the Mexican place down the block from our studio. He ordered two margaritas along with a plate of nachos for us to share, but he had yet to touch any of the food or drink in front of him. I wasn’t hungry, but I picked at the greasy pile of chips and chili simply because I was growing increasingly bored by the second. Upon entering the restaurant, Isaac had become entirely preoccupied with his iPhone, leaving me to dodge the overly flirtatious gazes of the waitress every single time she passed. 

I sighed as I twirled my straw through my margarita. I never claimed to be the world’s most exciting meal companion, but at least I knew how to exercise some basic common courtesy. Besides, it had been _his_ idea to spend time with me, which made his distracted behavior all the more baffling.

“Everything okay?” I asked, watching him tap out another frantic message with his thumbs.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” He hastily shoved his phone into his jacket pocket and took a long sip of his drink before finally giving me his full attention. 

I cocked an eyebrow at him suspiciously but decided not to press the issue. We made harmless small talk for the better part of an hour, but just as I was about to suggest another round of drinks, he set his credit card at the edge of the table with an air of finality. I couldn’t deny the rushed and overall strangeness of the evening thus far, but again, I didn’t question it. Isaac had always been a little bit socially awkward. 

“Want to go see a movie?” He pushed his chair back and stood up, peering down at me expectantly.

“Um, I don’t know.” I downed the last few mouthfuls of my margarita before rising to my feet beside him. “What’s playing?”

“There’s an indie film at Circle Cinema that looks pretty interesting.”

“Sounds good to me,” I agreed with a shrug.

Isaac seemed pleased as he led the way out of Mexicali. Once he was settled behind the wheel, he checked his phone again before tossing it into the cupholder wedged between our seats. As he pulled out of the parking lot, the small screen lit up with the arrival of a new text message, and I couldn’t stop myself from stealing a furtive glance down at it. I only got as far as spotting Zac’s name in the upper left-hand corner before Isaac noticed and quickly snatched it out of view.

“The theatre’s that way, you know,” I remarked, pointing to the right as he took a sharp turn to the left.

He ignored me and continued humming quietly along with the radio. 

“Ike, what’s going on?” I slapped my thigh in an exaggerated display of frustration. 

Knowing that Zac had been avoiding all forms of contact with me but apparently had no problem communicating with our eldest brother hurt more than I cared to admit. 

“We’re not actually going to the movies,” he revealed, sounding only slightly sheepish. “But before you ask, I can’t tell you where we _are_ going.”

“Why not?”

“I promised Zac I wouldn’t.”

As he drove on, I pressed my head against the back of the seat and closed my eyes, giving up on trying to figure out what the hell was happening. If my brothers wanted to team up and take me to a secret spot along the outskirts of town, then so be it. I only prayed that they weren’t plotting some sort of intervention, because I really didn’t see that ending well.

I must have dozed off, because when I opened my eyes, the digital clock below the dashboard let me know that twenty minutes had passed. Blinking through my bleary haze, I was met with a quaint wooden sign at the mouth of a long driveway. 

“The Cabins at Grand Lake,” I muttered to myself as I took in the rest of my moonlit surroundings. The narrow road was flanked by a tall, impressive forest, and I couldn’t help thinking that it all looked vaguely familiar.

And then, suddenly, it clicked. It was the very same place my wife had dragged me to last year. It was also where she had first proposed that we renew our vows. That short-lived trip was far from the romantic getaway she had hoped for, but it hadn’t been _all_ bad, I thought, recalling with aching fondness how Zac had crept into the cabin and tried to have his way with me. 

“Is Natalie behind this?” I spoke up, my voice tight with nerves.

“No. I told you—this was all Zac’s idea,” he repeated as he cut the engine. “I was just responsible for getting you from point A to point B.”

I continued staring at him blankly. 

“Taylor, relax. It’s not like I brought you to the woods to murder you or something,” Isaac said.

When I once again failed to respond, he let go of the wheel and threw up his hands in a show of exasperation.

“I brought you here for a party, okay? For your _bachelor_ party.”


	29. The Stripper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Nothing is more real than the masks we make to show each other who we are. – Christopher Barzak._

The memories swept over me like an unforgiving wind as I stood before the front door of the cabin. Over the last six months, I’d been so happy and sated with Zac’s love that I barely remembered what it was like to live without it. But these days, all it took was the simple sound of his voice or the knowledge that he was just a few feet away behind a closed door to bring those forlorn moments from the past back to life.

There were so many nights on tour when I’d lingered by the door of his hotel room, trying to gather the courage to confess everything: every forbidden thought, every lust-soaked fantasy, every wishful time he’d convinced me that he might possibly return my feelings. But in the end, the words got stuck in my throat and dropped back down into my heavy heart. I couldn’t tell him because I couldn’t bear to _lose_ him. And so I retreated into the dark confines of my own room and made fast friends with the mini bar. One night in particular, I got so drunk that I blacked out and missed my wake-up call the next morning. As luck would have it, it was Zac who wound up rousing me, and there was nothing quite as sobering as the sight of my little brother in the doorway, the picture of perfection itself, while I struggled to collect all of my scattered broken pieces. 

“The door’s unlocked, you know,” Isaac spoke from behind me, pulling me out of my flashback. “Go on in.”

I sucked in a deep breath and nodded, silently instructing the ghosts of my past not to follow me inside although I knew that it was never quite that easy. I was so preoccupied that I failed to notice the door behind tugged open from within, the unexpected motion causing me to trip gracelessly across the threshold. 

“And here I was worried that you’d forgotten how to make an entrance,” a low voice teased from above me, a strong arm reaching out to help me find my balance.

Wait. I definitely recognized that voice.

_Alex?_

“What are you do—,” The rest of my question was cut off, the few words I’d managed to get out muffled against the fabric of his shirt as he crushed me into a surprisingly forceful one-armed hug. 

“You know I never miss a good party,” he whispered into my hair before spinning us both around and nudging me in the direction of the kitchen.

He moved swiftly to the island and began tipping various forms of liquor into a tall tumbler. While he fixed what appeared to be a dangerously potent drink, I leaned against the doorframe and took in my surroundings. Not only was there nearly every type of alcohol known to man at my disposal, a bountiful spread of snacks and finger food covered the marbled countertops. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling when I spotted a heaping bowl of bacon-stuffed pizza rolls—my favorite guilty pleasure. There was no question that Zac was behind all of this.

 _But where is he?_ I wondered as I popped a crispy roll into my mouth and chewed it slowly. 

After tossing a handful of ice cubes into the glass and stirring them around, Alex offered me his masterpiece, complete with his signature shit-eating grin. I didn’t dare ask him what was in the drink he’d given me; the smell alone told me that I didn’t want to know. But before I had a chance to taste it, he grabbed me by the elbow and escorted me into the living room.

The cabin’s interior was all but identical to the one Natalie and I had stayed in several months ago. The walls of the spacious living room were painted in muted earth tones, and the furniture was quaint yet modern. It didn’t exactly have a ‘bachelor pad’ feel to it, but then again, this was proving to be a far cry from the few bachelor parties I’d attended. I’d done enough crazy partying to last a lifetime (most of it having taken place while I was not yet of legal drinking age), and Zac must have sensed that I much preferred a low-key gathering of close friends to some wild bash with a hundred-plus guests. In fact, aside from Ike and Alex, the only other person in the room was Wes. He waved when he saw me, his droopy eyes and broad smile letting me know that he was not only very drunk, but also high. 

As we talked and drank and took drags from the joint that Wes had supplied, I gradually came to terms with the fact that Zac wasn’t there. My inebriated haze was making it a little bit easier to deal with his absence, but his name kept landing on my tongue in a way that was more powerful than any aftertaste. I was so lost without him. 

But it was my own fault, I suppose. After everything I’d put him through, I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to be around me. Hell, I could hardly stand to be around myself.

I masked my sadness by tipping my head back and polishing off the last of my drink. Alex was quick to leap up and provide me with a refill, and I didn’t bother stopping him. The liquor was burning away the hard edges of my heartache, numbing the dull pain that rattled through the emptiness every single time I breathed. After handing me a fresh drink that smelled even stronger than the last two I’d consumed, he resumed his perch on the arm of the couch and cleared his throat.

“I think it’s time to get this party started!” Alex announced, his voice much louder than it needed to be in a room of only four people. 

I rolled my eyes and shifted my gaze to the tumbler resting on my thighs, catching my reflection in the crooked plane of glass at the bottom. The tiny blocks of ice broke apart my mirror image, allowing me to see a dozen different fractured versions of myself instead of a cohesive whole. I was so caught up in my private little staring game that I didn’t notice the background music coming to an abrupt halt until an obnoxiously familiar hip-hop song came blaring through the surround-sound speakers at full volume.

_I know you like me (I know you like me)  
I know you do (I know you do)  
That's why whenever I come around  
She's all over you (she's all over you)  
I know you want it (I know you want it)  
It's easy to see (it's easy to see)  
And in the back of your mind  
I know you should be on with me (babe)…_

“Oh, sweet baby Jesus. You’ve got to be kidding me,” Isaac muttered without tearing his eyes from the doorway, the expression on his face a cross between amusement and sheer horror. “I’m not nearly drunk enough for this.”

“Well, you can bet your ass _I_ am,” Alex chimed in, smiling wickedly.

Meanwhile, Wes looked so baked that I thought he might keel over and pass out at any moment. He had assumed a mostly reclined position on the floor and seemed entirely oblivious to whatever Ike and Alex were so worked up about. 

_What the hell is going on?_

Rather than attempt to shout over the sudden noise, I raised my hips slightly off the couch and craned my neck around Isaac to get a better view. 

My jaw almost hit the floor when I saw Zac standing coyly in the hallway, dressed from head to toe in a stripper outfit. In a dark brown wig, a tight leather vest and skirt, and matching black stilettos, he looked nothing short of utterly ridiculous. Once we established eye contact, he sauntered toward me as he mouthed the lyrics to the song through lipstick-slathered lips, his unsteady footsteps struggling to match the amped-up beat. Then he straddled my legs and lowered himself onto my lap, his hips swaying in a provocative rhythm. Thankfully, Alex leaned over and caught my drink mere seconds before it toppled from my loosened grip and spilled all over both of us.

_Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?  
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?  
Don't cha?  
Don't cha?  
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?  
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?  
Don't cha?  
Don't cha?_

“This is so…fucked up,” I breathed as Zac ran his hands down his chest in an overly sensual fashion, undoing the buttons on his vest one by one. 

“Just shut up and enjoy it,” he murmured, his mouth unbearably close to my ear. His breath was hot and sweet, like delicious liquid fire claiming the sensitive skin of my neck.

_Fight the feeling (fight the feeling)  
Leave it alone (leave it alone)  
'Cause if it ain't love  
It just ain't enough to leave my happy home (my happy home)  
Let's keep it friendly (let's keep it friendly)  
You have to play fair (you have to play fair)  
See I don't care  
But I know she ain't gonna wanna share…_

When his crotch bumped against mine, I closed my eyes and swallowed a shaky moan of desire. My little brother clearly wasn’t meant to ever dress like a woman, but I couldn’t deny the effects that his body had on me. Once he removed his vest, it took all of my fragile willpower not to reach out and smooth my fingers along the taut, tanned lines of his bare chest.

As Zac gazed down at me, he slipped out of character for a few brief seconds, his brown eyes wide and filled with uncloaked longing. In those frozen moments, it was like we were in a world of make believe, where anything was possible, where the weathered roads we’d traveled and the mistakes I’d made ceased to exist. 

But Isaac’s cackling peals of laughter brought us back to reality, reminding us both that this was exactly what it looked like. A frivolous sliver of time. A show. A charade. And I knew it would be over far too soon.

_I know she loves you (I know she loves you)  
I understand (I understand)  
I'd probably be just as crazy about you  
If you were my own man  
Maybe next lifetime (maybe next lifetime)  
Possibly (possibly)  
Until then old friend  
Your secret is safe with me_

_Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?  
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?  
Don't cha?  
Don't cha?  
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?  
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?  
Don't cha?  
Don't cha?_

The song tapered to a close and Zac threw one last glance in my direction before sliding off of my lap and standing, careful not to poke Wes’ sleeping frame with his high-heeled boot in the process. He then retrieved his leather vest from the floor, twirled it around on his fingers, and took a modest bow. His flushed cheeks were marked with dewy drops of sweat, and his painted lips were molded into a lopsided grin, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he had just done but was proud of himself nonetheless.

“It’s a good thing I didn't capture that little display on video,” Ike remarked with a shake of his head once Zac had disappeared back into the hallway. “If Kate ever sees her husband dressed like that, the poor woman will go into cardiac arrest.”

“Speak for yourself.” Alex brandished his iPhone gleefully.

“I’ll be right back,” I said quietly.

Although my head was still spinning and I didn’t trust my legs to support my weight, I somehow managed to lift myself up off of the couch and follow Zac into the bedroom.


	30. Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. **He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires.** Are you prattling about an instinct of self-preservation? An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. **An “instinct” is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living.” – Ayn Rand.**_

I was grateful for the loud music that led the way into the bedroom. The pounding bassline masked the nervous beating of my heart and gave my footsteps a distinct rhythm to fall into. The sound of running water lured me in the direction of the adjoining bathroom, and once I got there, I leaned against the doorframe and shamelessly drank in my little brother’s candid beauty. 

Zac had shed his boots and mini-skirt and was even more scantily dressed than before, wearing just a simple pair of low-rise briefs. He was clearly unaware of my presence as he scrubbed at the lipstick with a wad of toilet paper, his eyebrows narrowed in concentration. The expression I saw reflected in the wall-length mirror was strangely distant, almost guarded, like he was only willing to reveal his skin and not what lay beneath it. I was clueless as to what he was feeling, but I refused to let the not knowing unhinge me, choosing instead to focus on his chest, his back, his arms and all of their familiar grooves and contours.

“That was quite a show.”

Thanks to nerves, my voice was much louder than it should have been given our relative proximity, and he tensed up like he had been shocked. He didn’t turn to face me, but his lips turned up in recognition in spite of his physical reaction, like he wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to see me standing there.

Once he’d finished removing what was left of the makeup, he turned and took a few steps in my direction. My spine tingled as I breathed in the intoxicating smell of soap and sweat and _him_.

I couldn’t stop myself from grinning at the memory of his leather-clad body grinding against my own, the silky hair from his wig caressing my forehead like a light and teasing wind. It had been so ridiculous, yet it had also been the perfect antidote to my sadness.

“You know…” he began in a husky voice as he moved in even closer. “I could barely breathe in that skintight skirt and risked killing myself as I pranced around in those damn heels, but it was worth every bit of pain and discomfort just to see you smile again.”

He touched his index finger to the corner of my mouth before promptly dropping his hand into the narrow space between us. Then, without so much as breathing out a warning, he grabbed my hips and spun us both toward the mirror. My breath hitched in my throat at the sight of us, our images like distorted echoes of each other, like linked puzzle pieces that were finally where they belonged but were battered and weary after being jammed into too many wrong places. 

“Why do you hate yourself so much?” The question came out just above a whisper as he stared at our reflection, his lips pressed against my ear.

“Zac…”

“No, I need to know. Is it because you’re getting older? Because you’re not where you thought you’d be at this point in time? Because you’re having another kid? Or because your past keeps coming back to haunt you? I hate to break it to you, Tay, but those are all things that make you _human_. I know you wish certain parts of your life had worked out differently—God knows I wish that too, sometimes—but what if they had? Then maybe we would have never happened…”

We are never as strong or as perfectly unyielding as the walls that we build around ourselves, and once his words hit me, I could feel myself crumbling. My hands and legs and heart were trembling and I was unraveling, the emotions that I’d kept bottled up for so many years coming apart like threads yanked swiftly from their sockets. 

They were side effects of a life I’d never asked for.

Back when I was a teenager—before the pregnancy and the marriage and the drugs—my father had pulled me aside and searched my wide, unblinking eyes like he was hoping to catch a glimpse of my future there. He told me that some pretty great perks came with a career like ours, and that I should accept them not greedily, but graciously. And when he moved on to warn me about inevitable temptations, I could have sworn that his stare grew even more deep and piercing. At the time, I thought he was just trying to scare me away from sampling illegal substances, but looking back, maybe he was scared _for_ me. Like parents often do, mine had a strangely accurate sixth sense for impending disaster. Sometimes, I really do believe they had predicted my downfall years before it actually happened. 

That being said, I doubt they could have ever imagined the scene reflected before my eyes: a striking picture of two of their sons—two _brothers_ —in love. Zac’s grip on my waist tightened and he lifted my right hand to his lips, gently kissing the marks along my knuckles that still hadn’t fully healed. He hardly ever displayed such naked tenderness, not even toward his own children. I very nearly cried over the sweetness of the moment, this vulnerable act of affection that I hardly deserved. 

“I know you think that your life is over, but you’re not even thirty… it’s just beginning,” he said, angling my head toward his so that our noses bumped together. 

God, I wanted to kiss and touch him everywhere. Would he let me? Would I let myself? 

“And maybe it could be a _new_ beginning for us,” he finished softly. 

“But I thought you said–”

“I know what I said,” he cut me off without breaking our gaze. “I say a lot of crap, especially when I’m pissed off and feeling wronged. But I’ve had a lot of time to think during the last few weeks, and the only conclusion I’ve been able to reach is that without you, I fall asleep lonely and I wake up even lonelier. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone… and I’ve learned that I _can_ exist as just your brother, but I sure as hell don’t want to.”

He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine as though to punctuate his point. It was one of the softest kisses we’d ever shared, and it was also one of the most powerful; it stole the air from my lungs and caused my knees to buckle. 

“We both know you still have a shit-ton of stuff to figure out, but I want to be with you this time. I don’t want you to have to do it alone,” he said.

A whimper of relief left my lips mere seconds before his mouth covered mine, claiming me with renewed vigor. He broke away after a few blissful seconds and took my hands in his, his eyes shining with a mixture of feelings I hadn’t seen in such a long time that I had trouble recognizing it at first. It was a look of desire and trust and _hope_. 

“Here’s to new beginnings,” I murmured happily, feeling much like I was swept up in a dream as he walked me backwards toward the bed.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

Once again, I was thankful for the deafening currents of sound throbbing through the walls of the cabin. Maybe they hadn’t totally drowned out our cries, but I was sure that they had at least muted them. The amount of noise we were making was just about the last thing on our minds as we moved together beneath the sheets, an unstoppable tangle of lips and hands and desperate moans.

“Damn. Was it always that good?” 

Zac fell back against the mattress with a satisfied sigh and locked his arms behind his head, giving me a generous view of his bare torso. I danced my fingertips from his navel to his chest, watching his skin ripple the way water does when a stone is thrown across it. 

“Are you implying that sex with me is usually a letdown?” I joked.

The mock offense in my tone gave way almost immediately to laughter, which eventually tapered off into pensive silence. I understood what he meant—that had been, without a doubt, the best round of sex I’d ever had. He knew exactly where to touch me, how to kiss me and reduce me to a dazed and quivering mess before building me back up again. 

Wanting to see him, I reached down and brushed a strand of hair from his eyes; I couldn’t believe how long he’d let it grow. Then again, I couldn’t believe a lot of what had happened in the last six months. I settled onto the bed beside him as a rush of memories pulled me under, some far from pleasant but others overwhelming in their splendor.

“What?” I resurfaced from my thoughts to find him studying me closely.

“Well, it’s just that you have a little lipstick right here,” he replied with a smirk, his thumb grazing across my cheekbone. “But don’t worry. I think that color looks great on you.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to catch him in a headlock, but in that moment, he was stronger. He flipped me over and pinned me to the bed in one smooth motion, his dark eyes lit with excited flecks of gold. He kissed a pathway from my lips to my jaw to the hollow of my neck, keeping one hand planted firmly against my heart.

“I’ll never stop loving you,” he spoke against my racing pulse. “Do you know what that means? It means…” he paused briefly as he felt along my ribcage. “…that this is it for me. I’m still gonna love you when most of your hair is gone and what’s left of it has turned that weird, whitish-gray that I hate… or when you’ve gotten so damn old and senile that you can’t remember my name. You drive me so crazy sometimes, but I can’t picture my world without you in it.”

It might not have been the most eloquent speech, but when had either of us been very good with words? I was too stunned to do anything about the tears that sprung to my eyes, so I simply let them break apart against my cheeks and fall at whatever pace they wished. 

_How did I get so lucky?_ I asked him without speaking.

Most people would never know the true love of another and therefore couldn’t comprehend what a rare and amazing gift it was. And yet I had found that sort of permanent connection not just with anyone, but with my own flesh and blood. I helped him learn to swim and watched him grow in and out of my hand-me-downs. I offered up my ice cream cone whenever he knocked his to the ground, knowing that he craved the creamy treat far more than I ever did. I built endless pillow forts and sand castles with him and he put up with my incessant ramblings about my childhood dreams when no one else was listening. I laughed and cried and _lived_ more with him than with anyone else.

Unlike Natalie, Zac was my other half. He really did complete me.

“Right back atcha,” I whispered, circling my arms around him with every shred of strength left in me. 

I shut my eyes and was on the verge of losing myself in the embrace when Alex’s voice carried through the closed bedroom door, followed by a violent thump, like he’d thrown his entire body up against it.

“Are you guys decent in there? I hope not, ‘cause I’m coming in…”


	31. Locks and Keys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Needing was so easy: it came naturally, like breathing. Being needed by someone else, though, that was the hard part. But as with giving help and accepting it, we had to do both to be made complete—like links overlapping to form a chain, or a lock finding the right key.” – Sarah Dessen._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the epilogue to _Mirror, Mirror_ the second book in the _Avenues_ series. I plan to start posting the third book in the series very soon!

**_ONE WEEK LATER…_ **

The morning after the vow renewal found me on the front porch with my coffee mug in hand, watching the steam rise off of it and greet the mild spring day. I was exhausted, yet remarkably peaceful. My ability to separate the constant noise in my life from everything else had become more of a survival instinct over time, and I was unconsciously practicing it as I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes, drowning out my sons’ bickering voices followed closely by my wife’s words of admonishment. 

I knew that it wasn’t fair to make Natalie deal with them by herself—it was three against one, and they were all too aware of the power in numbers, a tactic my siblings and I had used to our advantage countless times while growing up. But I also knew that whatever they were arguing about would work itself out eventually.

They were brothers, after all, tied to each other in a way that was deep, unchangeable and everlasting. 

I opened my eyes slowly, letting them drift over the sloping driveway and across the familiar landscape. To the vigilant joggers forging their daily path down the sidewalk or the couples who always walked several loops around the neighborhood shortly after daybreak, I was probably the picture of loneliness itself: a man seeking refuge from his home, the warmth of his drink his only company. 

_Little do they know that I’m never really alone_ , I thought with a smile, reaching into my pocket to feel the reassuring weight of the key against my palm.

 

_**ONE WEEK EARLIER…** _

Alex staggered into the room and flung himself across the bed, his landing amazingly accurate given how obviously drunk he was. His gaze flitted between us in a show of unmasked excitement, lingering for several extra beats on my brother’s naked form. Unlike me, Zac hadn’t scrambled to cover himself up after the intrusion, clearly proud of all he had to offer. But how could I blame him? His raw, exquisite beauty was a glorious thing to behold, and I was glad to be allowed to know it so intimately. 

“Way to leave me stranded out there with Tweedledee and Tweedledum while you guys were in here having all the fun,” Alex spat with a frown.

“Oh, shut it. You’re lucky you were even invited in the first place,” Zac replied, swatting absently at the back of his head.

As their playful banter continued, I relaxed against the pillows with a contented sigh. Happiness was a foreign concept to me, much like clean and unobstructed air is to a chronic smoker. After fucking up so many different things over the course of almost thirty years, I hadn’t just grown used to feeling sad and disappointed—I’d come to _expect_ it.

Without thinking, acting purely on instinct, I leaned across Alex and gave Zac a long and grateful kiss. The world suddenly didn’t feel like this huge, unfathomable burden that I was being forced to shoulder. I found that I could think about the future without wanting to gouge my own eyes out with the closest sharp object. In fact, I was looking forward to it…to this new chapter of my life with Zac. 

My brother. My equal. The only person who knew how to save me from myself.

*** * * * * * * * * ***

After finally convincing Alex to leave us alone on the condition that we come back out and join the party _soon_ (he’d tried desperately to bargain for a threesome, but it was neither the time nor the place for that), Zac reached out and gently thumbed my eyes closed, instructing me to keep them shut until he returned.

“Okay,” he announced, cuing me to look back up at him. 

When he pushed a small package toward me with a grin, I very nearly pinched myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. As if throwing me a party and giving me a lap dance that would surely resurface in many fantasies to come weren’t enough, he felt the need to shower me with gifts? Feeling immensely touched, I turned the box over in my hands and blinked through a thin curtain of tears. 

“Don’t get all sappy on me, Tay. Just open it.” Zac’s voice was soft and husky, like he too had been hit by an onslaught of feelings he wasn’t quite prepared for. 

Chuckling, I tore through the wrapping paper and lifted the lid from the box to find a brass key sitting in the center. Rubbing my index finger along its dented grooves, I sent a curious glance in his direction.

“You know how hard it is for us to find even just a few minutes alone?” 

I nodded.

“Well, that’s why I decided to rent out this cabin—not just for tonight, but indefinitely,” he explained, scooting in until our sides were touching. 

“So this place is all yours now?”

He shook his head, strands of hair spilling into both of our faces.

“No, it’s _ours_ ,” he corrected. "I figured we could use a hideaway."

He took my hand in his and held up our interlocked fingers, causing the head of the key to glisten in the artificial light. It was then I noticed the word etched into the copper surface, and it was then I learned the true meaning of it. 

**HOME.**


End file.
